It is a seductive idea: you go to sleep and your pillowcase (or mattress or comforter) goes to work, nourishing your skin and improving your appearance in ways a good night’s rest can’t quite muster.

Call it the ultimate beauty sleep.

And now from the bedding industry comes beauty bedding, a small but growing army of pillows, sheets, blankets, comforters and mattresses made from high-tech fabrics and buttressed with additives? and claims? more common to cosmetics than comforters: seaweed mattress ticking (the fabric used in mattress construction) purports to rejuvenate skin and aloe vera pillow covers and blankets that promise to soothe skin and moisturize. And depending on the manufacturer, copper-inflected pillowcases are designed to help reduce the appearance of facial wrinkles, fight bacteria, smite dust mites and benefit sufferers of eczema and psoriasis.

Some dermatologists have raised questions about the efficacy of the products and their claims.

“The companies haven’t usually done the studies that we expect to see to make their claims,”said Dr.Leslie Baumann, the director of the University of Miami Cosmetic Medicine and Research Institute.

Another issue is the choice of ingredients used in the product.“It is important that they have been proven to work,”she said.“We know, for example, that aloe vera is good for sensitive skin and gets rid of redness. But with marine algae there is no data for what it claims to do.”

Indeed, aloe vera is the bedding industry’s go-to botanical ingredient, found in products like Natura World’s latex-filled, wool-lined pillow with an aloe vera cotton cover($77) and Hollandia International’s aloe kangaroo blanket($150), which claims to regulate moisture and neutralize irritation and has pouches to keep the hands and feet warm. Mattress makers from giants like Serta to boutique companies sell mattresses with aloe vera ticking.

Unlike soy protein and sea algae, which are woven directly into the fabric, aloe vera is usually housed in microcapsules, which are bound tightly to the bedding fabric during the finishing process.

“The microbeads release the aloe when they’re crushed by the weight of your body,”said Edwin Shoffner, the vice president of sales for Park Place, which uses aloe vera ticking on a high-end memory foam mattress, priced from $1,499 for a queen set.

The amount of aloe released by the body’s pressure is small, he said. It isn’t greasy, he added,“but if you rub the back of your hand on the aloe vera ticking, you’ll see a sheen.”

Copper bedding products offer a sexy promise: to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, crow’s feet and fine lines in four to six weeks as well as combat bacteria, allergens and fungi.

But Dr.Baumann is skeptical.“To make an aging claim, you have to be down to the dermas,”she said.“We know copper peptide does this, but not regular copper. And even with copper peptide applied topically in high amounts, it’s not very easy to get it to penetrate.”

Just don’t tell that to Pat Wright, a homemaker in Malaga, Spain, who said she has slept on a Copalife pillowcase for several months.

“It tingled a bit the first time I used it, but the crow’s feet around my eyes aren’t so strong and my neck looks less craggy,” she said.“I haven’t used another pillowcase since I got it.”


By TERRY TRUCCO