What Is Cool Sleep Certified

Uncovering Hype and Reality of Sleeping Cool

Our current advertising campaign is for our Cool Sleep Certified program.  We usually hold a Cool Sleep program right as we enter Summer for obvious reasons…heck it’s already 100 degrees in Carlsbad!bear sleeping cool

The campaign has always been a massive success for us, but the main question/concern we get from our customers is, “How do we know this mattress will help us sleep cooler?” “Will it really keep us cooler?”, everything along the lines of will this thing really work.  We love having this opportunity to really explain why we “certify” our Cool Sleep and the fact that our “certify” really means that our entire staff has been taught or taken the time to learn about the fabrics and specialty foams that make up our mattress lines.

First, let us address the truth about all the “cool” or “cooling” mattresses.  They are NOT going to refrigerate you.  The design is not about making it feel like you have an ice pack on you so that you take a 90-degree bedroom and make it a perfect 70 degrees.  This is NOT what a cooling mattress does.  Although some of the misleading advertising makes you think that this is what you’re paying for, it just is not what it is.

Since Sleep Well’s core principles is making sure the customer is getting the mattress they need and the help sleeping that they need, we knew that just taking a manufacturers word for “cooling” was not going to cut it.  We spent MANY hours looking over designs, foams, fabrics, and many other science-y factors that come into play to make sure we didn’t label something Cool Sleep Certified that really wasn’t.

We learned along the way that even the manufactures we had chosen to do business with were mislabeling their product too.  So we went against the grain and relabeled our mattress lines the way OUR customers would get the most from.  Yes, we did upset some of our reps.  Yes, we did get some phone calls. We didn’t care, in our minds, if we are paying for the product, we get to be honest in the way we sell it. Who matters most, a manufacturer or a customer?  Yeah, the customer every time.

Let’s talk what “Cool Sleep” really is, it is a design of a mattress or sleep system that is made to keep the clientele cool throughout the night.  The cool factor is meant as – The person sleeping in the mattress will not experience a HEAT BUILDUP due to foams, lack of air circulation, or sweat buildup.

This all boils down to, will you, the person sleeping in an average room temperature bedroom (75-70 degrees) experience a heat buildup because your bed it not pulling away heat from your body?  If you can sleep through the night without your mattress holding your body heat next to you, then THAT is a cool sleep mattress.

Sound easy to do?  It isn’t. You put out 98 degrees of body temperature into a foam product for 7 to 8 hours (I know 6 if you’re lucky), most foams will hold that heat and bring your sleeping environment up to that temperature.  Early versions and cheap versions of memory foam are notorious for doing this.  They are the absolute worst for holding heat.  Stay away from memory foam that costs less the $1000, you won’t be sorry in the long run, I promise.

A “Cool Sleep Certified” mattress will have extras that allow for heat transfer and ventilation of the heat, foams that don’t hold heat like latex, and fabrics that wick the sweat away from you and are super breathable.  That is the difference.  That is why we upset some of our manufactures, they labeled their product as cooling, but it didn’t have all four of those factors.  Any mattress without ALL 4 of those factors is NOT going to keep you cool.  One missing element and the whole premise of keeping the heat away from you collapses.

We did our research by learning about foams. We investigated how they held heat, how they dispelled heat, and how the foam allowed for circulation.  We found out that latex is the TOP heat dissipating material for mattress design.  It doesn’t absorb heat, it stays at the temperature of the room regardless of what your body brings to it.

We also looked at several different memory foam designs.  Found that almost all of the supposed “gel cooling” memory foams were nothing but hype.  Literally nothing but a blue colored gel that was mixed in with the chemicals making up memory foam. These little gel particles were supposed to move your body heat around and not allow you to heat up.  NOT true.  The tiny gel particles just sat there and got hot.

We looked at ventilation and learned about how air passes through a mattress if it is designed correctly.  Think about it, air sits there in your mattress, goes nowhere.  If it moved, then the bed would have the opportunity to dispel the heat you’re building up.

We learned about fabrics used in the mattress industry.  Found a miracle fabric called Tencel. Tencel became an obsession for co-owner Gretchen, she can tell you how the stuff is woven, how it wicks, how it keeps you cool, how it ventilates.  She loves this fabric because she knows it works.

There are extra unique “Cooling” factors in several of our mattresses as well.  Our Technogel line contains a full inch of gel underneath you.  The gel is ventilated and allows for air passage.  The gel is also a thick formulated product that does not allow heat to build up.  By being thicker, it takes way longer to heat up, with that principle, you can see that if the temperature doesn’t build up fast, it, therefore, keeps you cooler longer (all night).

There is a process known in our industry as Omniphase heat transfer.  It is a mineral treatment that is added to fabrics and to foams that by science way beyond this blog entry actually PULLS the heat from you.  The Phase Change Material heats up to 92 degrees then actively pulls the heat from you.  You have to experience it to fully understand the way it will change your sleep life. It works.

So let’s wrap this up. “Cool Sleep Certified” at Sleep Well means the makeup of the mattress has been thoroughly researched to keep heat from building up.  There are four factors we use to make sure that our mattresses will indeed keep you cool.  Those factors are ventilation, heat transfer, specific foams that don’t hold heat, and super breathable wicking fabrics.

Cool Sleep does not mean that the mattress will magically bring down the 90-degree room temperature in your bedroom to a pleasant 70 degrees.  It means the mattress is designed to dispel your body heat.

We did NOT mention your sheet choices, those are EVERY bit as important as your mattress.  For info on that, please watch our video on Sheet Talk.  In there, we cover the different fabric choices we stock and why they are the best for you.

Please share this blog if you have found value in the information.  We appreciate any comments you have or information you can bring forward for us to research for you.  Remember when You Sleep Well, You Live Well.

About the author:

Javier is the owner of Sleep Well, professionally trained sleep stores, specializing in specific mattresses for specific needs. He lives to give. He is an active member of his community and church. His hard work and efforts pay off for him when he can help others, and give to efforts for the betterment of others.
His spare time is spent with his beautiful wife, Gretchen. They are craft beer hobbyists who enjoy making their own beers, visiting small breweries, and making new friends. Their lives revolve around church, family, exercising, four great dogs, and keeping up with their home in Alamogordo NM.