This year (2016) is the Silver Anniversary of memory foam mattresses. It was 25 years ago that Fagerdala World Foam put the Swedish Tempur Mattress on the market in Sweden. The popularity of this led the company to start selling memory foam mattresses in the United States, and Tempur-Pedic was established in Lexington, Kentucky. Since then, memory foam has changed the way mattresses are made. Memory foam mattresses quickly surpassed waterbed sales. It took longer to match innerspring...
Better Mattresses and Mattress Selection through Pressure Mapping Pressure mapping is not exactly new to the bedding industry. It has been used to test mattresses at least since 2012, when Scott Braddam used it to evaluate mattresses on Beds.org, for example in his review of the Select Comfort Sleep Number Classic Series. By 2013, Kingsdown was using it in matching a customer with the right mattress. Pressure map sequence for Select Comfort Sleep Number Classic Series What is...
Mr. Sandman: Silica and Sleep A popular song recorded in 1954ยน begins with, "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream." An old nursery rhyme says, "The Sandman's coming in his train of cars / With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars." Both of these verses are about the mythical Sandman of folklore in Northern Europe. The imaginary Sandman caused people to sleep, then sprinkled magical sand on them to bring good dreams. The "sand" in the stories refers to grainy particles most people have in and...
What Chemicals Are in My Bedding? The public, not only in America, but in Europe and the rest of the world, has become keenly aware of the use of chemicals in commonly used items. One major industrial firm1 used the slogan, "Better Living Through Chemistry" until dropping it in response to public concerns over the effects of many chemical compounds on health and the environment. It has become fashionable to deride or hold in suspicion anything labeled "chemical" or "synthetic." But this...
Marketing Mattresses Online What is Amazon best known for? Online shopping. Amazon began with selling books over the Internet and delivering them through the Post Office, UPS and FedEx. Now they sell almost anything, including beds, mattresses, pillows and sheets. More than just an online store, now Amazon is a marketplace, with manufacturers and distributors posting their products on Amazon. Likewise, eBay has expanded from an Internet auction site to a marketplace. In addition, eBay...
It has been almost 4,000 years since Jacob used a stone for his pillow. Honestly, it was not the pillow that caused him to dream about angels walking up and down a tall ladder, but our pillows can affect how well we sleep, and perhaps whether or how we dream. What is the primary purpose of a pillow? To support and cushion the head. When a person lies down to sleep, the head needs to be high enough to keep the neck in line with the rest of the spine. Notice how many people who don't have a...
What Are You Sleeping on? The Ingredients List for Mattress Recipes What are you sleeping on? A few of the readers of this article may sleep in a sleeping bag or on folded blankets or quilts on a sleeping mat or an air mattress, especially if they are camping at the time and using a smart phone or tablet. Most of us, however, sleep on beds of one sort or another, also including sofas, futons, semi sleepers, and built-in beds. The most common configuration for a bed in North America is a...
Polyethylene Penicillin was discovered by accident when Alexander Fleming noticed bacteria dying in the presence of certain molds. Vulcanization of rubber by sulfur was also accidentally discovered by Charles Goodyear. In 1898 in Germany, Hans von Pechmann accidentally synthesized polyethylene. It took longer for polyethylene to become widely used than for rubber and penicillin, but now it is one of the most widely used food packaging materials. And it is also being used in...
Graphite Lump ~~~ Pencil ~~~ Cut Diamond ~~~ Graphite Structure Graphite and Diamond Dust: Pencil Lead and Jewels Several mattresses are described as having foams or fibers infused with graphite or diamond particles. Graphite and diamond are two kinds of carbon crystals. Both are pure carbon, but they differ in the crystalline structure. The structural difference makes diamond extremely hard and graphite relatively soft. Real diamond particles (a.k.a. diamond dust) are very abrasive and...
Foam Springs In February 2014, I posted an article about wood coils, a new kind of mattress innerspring invented and developed by a Hungarian company. Not long before the launch of wooden coils in the bedding market, another new kind of mattress spring was invented and introduced into the market by Willy Poppe, a Belgian. Poppe is CEO of a family-owned bedding manufacturer, Diamond Spring Company, in Sint-Niklaas, East Flanders, Belgium. Willy Poppe *** Logo of...
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