There are not a lot of huge developments on the mattress front. Temper-pedic and memory foam and purple have run their courses. Traditional mattresses are still the most popular. After a decade learning about and cleaning mattresses; however, I have learned a few things.
- ORGANIC is best. Despite the hesitation of consumers around organic products, an organic mattress is still the safest thing you can put against your skin for the third of your life that you are sleeping. Organic means more than just a certain kind of cotton or natural fiber. It is always important to check your materials and to see what the mattresses actually made of, but starting with organic narrows down your search for something that is non-toxic.
- Waterproof or liquid protection is critical. Liquids should never penetrate the outside fabric of your mattress. The cleaning of any mattress has remained the same through the decades. You do not want to get a mattress wet beyond the very outside surface. Improper drying leads to mold and mildew and other harmful bacteria that you don’t want to put next to your body. When we clean a mattress, we clean the outside fabric, meaning that we can’t reach or remove anything that penetrates further than that. Once a liquid has penetrated the mattress it is impossible to reach! We get a lot of calls for people who who’ve had an accident on the mattress – whether a guest or a child or an animal – and they want us to clean it. Sorry, folks, if that offending substance has wicked into the cushioning, no can-do.
- Allergy treatments are important. Whether you choose to use an allergy cover or a product like our allergy treatment, it is important to reduce the allergens that are coming in contact with your body.
- Airing your mattress out is necessary. I am one who wants to make the bed immediately after I get out of it, but I hold myself from doing so. It is important for air circulation to reach your sheets – this slows the buildup of bacteria. My mother-in-law used to take all of her sheets and pillows outside every day, and let them lay in the sun. When she would do that at my house, it drove me crazy, but what she was doing is the healthiest thing you could possibly do! Since it is not reasonable to drag the mattress out of doors, just leave it unmade for a spell before you cover it all up again.
- Secondary to air and sunlight is washing your sheets regularly (weekly at least) with an all natural nontoxic laundry detergent. Don’t put toxins directly in contact with your skin!
- Regular professional cleaning prevents buildup of skin cells and oils on your mattress. You can see in the pictures in this post, your mattress is dirtier than you think.
Your skin is the largest organ in your body. Bodily fluids will travel through your night clothes and your sheets and end up in your mattress. Check out this post on how much we “toxify” our own mattresses unknowingly, and then sleep on them for eight hours a night or sometimes more. There are so many things in our environment that are making us sick. Don’t let your mattress be one of them.
The cold, dark days of winter make our beds, particularly cozy and inviting but also make them a haven for bacteria and dust mites (which feed on our dead skin cells-gross) so adding time between the sheets means more work keeping up with cleaning which is essential to good health and hygiene. Time to freshen up and rid our nests of the grime.
Spring is the ideal time to have your mattress, professionally cleaned, allergy treated, and then covered with easy to maintain and washable mattress sleeves, covers and regularly cleaned sheets. This prevents the bad bacteria from impacting you from the inside of the mattress, as well as more traveling from the outside in!
Happy Cleaning!
