CLEAN BEDDING
We spend a lot of time in our beds, roughly a third of our lives. When it comes to having a fresh room, good night sleep, and a welcome return to the bed at night, it can be refreshing to know your bed is in top shape. There are a few great tricks to having the freshest bed in town.
Tip #1: Sheets and Mattress Pads
Replacing sheets and pillow cases once a week is a good rule of thumb, though not absolutely necessary. If you are using a thin mattress pad – use two mattress pads instead of one. They are cheap, easy to wash, and any body odor accumulation will rarely even get to the second pad, much less your mattress! This can even be a cost saving trick over buying thicker, more expensive mattress pads, which rarely offer more padding than two cheaper pads, but often cost 4-5 times as much. Plus, the larger pads are usually more difficult to wash, and the padding material itself is more likely to pull apart and cluster into various corners of each small sewn pocket.
Tip #2: Pillow Cases
Thicker pillow cases are worth the extra money. They create a buffer between your pillow and things like hair oils and morning breath. Sleeping on one’s stomach and breathing onto the pillow is the easiest way to build up moisture and odor actually. Also, going to sleep with wet hair is another good way to age a pillow quickly. To avoid this dampening effect, you can temporarily lay a second pillow case, or t-shirt on top of your pillow as your hair dries. Finding a perfect case can be tricky for those most sensitive to how fabrics feel on their skin, so when you find “the best one you’ve ever had” it might be good to buy an extra few cases for the future. This will also promote changing the case more often, as you can just peel them off an wash them with your clothes, more frequently than sheets even. This is a great idea to promote clean skin, as oils can cause acne. Frequent changes have been reported to help this common skin condition dramatically. Also, refraining from laying hair-down on the case, then rolling over and directly placing your face on that same spot is most helpful. Roll the pillow over when changing from back-sleeping to stomach sleeping is a great way to let the oils oxidize and not transfer directly to the skin of the face.
TIP #3: Mattress Toppers
For the last couple decades pillow-topped mattress have become very common. While they feel good in the show room, and for the first couple years, the padding will eventually sag in the middle leading to achy backs. Also, the plush top may make it tempting to just use one cheap mattress pad beneath your sheets. In truth, you might be better off buying a good mattress that is not pillow-topped and then buy a separate topper. Toppers used to be very affordable and for no good reason, they have increased in price dramatically over the years. However, it’s still cheaper than buying a topped spring bed and finding it uncomfortable after just a few years. Having a seperate pad also means that if someone has an ‘accident’ or wakes up sweating frequently (a fairly common issue) that the moisture simply won’t get into the mattress at all. These toppers create a great barrier that is replaceable in and of itself. In combination with two cheap mattress pads, offer the maximum barrier between body and mattress, meaning this is probably the cleanest combination possible.
Conclusion: Bedding is often a matter of personal taste, but keeping it clean is just a matter of logic. Having a fresh bed makes a lot of people happy, and having a dirty bed is something the owner might not sense as well as a guest to walks into the room. If you are having trouble discerning, it could be helpful to ask if the bedroom has a dirty bed smell, it can help you tighten up your game to impress your significant other.