Mattress protectors are just for kids, right? No, they’re for everyone. These days you can get soft, silent mattress protectors that offer the same amount of protection as the plasticky, crinkly ones they used to make, with the comfortable feel of fabric. They protect your mattress from spills and bodily fluids, but that’s not the only reason to get one.
You see, your mattress is a repository for dead skin flakes and other debris that can fall off your skin, like cosmetic powders and hair products. When you don’t sleep with a mattress protector, all of that stuff falls right through your sheets and gets rubbed into the mattress itself. It attracts dust mites and bacteria, which can trigger allergies, cause funny smells, and age your mattress prematurely — plus, it just makes your bed a pretty gross place to sleep.
Keep Your Mattress Clean
It’s a fact of life — mattresses are prone to getting stained. There are all kinds of bodily fluids that can seep through sheets and stain a mattress, either in our sleep or during other activities.
Once a liquid penetrates the top layers of your mattress, there’s no getting it out. You can scrub and scrub, and you’ll never be able to really get all of the contaminants out of the inner layers of the mattress. And, of course, there’s often a stain left behind.
Even if you’re not too concerned about excreting bodily fluids onto your mattress, you should consider that everyone sweats in their sleep — at the very least, your mattress will become damp with perspiration, and even a slight amount of dampness, combined with the warmth of your body, creates the perfect environment for bacteria to grow.
A mattress protector is the solution to keep your mattress clean. You can’t always control what your body does, but you can control the level of protection you choose for your mattress. A water-resistant mattress protector keeps bodily fluids, and liquids in general, from reaching your mattress. You can keep your mattress stain-free and like new for years.
Relieve Allergies
If someone in your household suffers from allergies, a mattress protector is the right call. Some people are specifically allergic to dust mites, because of allergens they produce called Der P1 and Der P5. These allergens are commonly found in dust mite fecal matter, and they can cause coughing; sneezing; itchy, watery eyes; and asthma-like symptoms.
Dust mites feed on the dead skin flakes that fall off your body during the night. When you don’t have a mattress protector, those dead skin flakes get into the mattress itself, where dust mites have the opportunity to live, produce more dust mites, and die on the bounty. The same goes for bacteria that are attracted to the former dust mites and their fecal matter, as well as the warm, damp environment created inside your mattress. The circle of life is a beautiful thing, but it doesn’t have to take place inside your mattress. You don’t need to sleep on years’ worth of accumulating dust mites and dead bacteria, fecal matter, and maybe mildew and mold. A mattress protector will keep all of it from reaching your mattress, and you can just wash the mattress protector every couple of weeks to keep your bed spic and span and wash away any dead skin flakes, dust mites, bodily fluids, or other contaminants from your bed. And if you’re worried about a synthetic mattress protector releasing volatile organic compounds (VoCs) into your home, you can go with a sustainable, organic mattress protector made from naturally water-resistant and flame retardant-materials.
Get More Use Out of Your Mattress
Most people have to buy a new mattress every eight to 10 years, but that’s often not because the mattress has begun to lose function. It’s often because the mattress has become stained, started to smell, or otherwise become unsanitary for use.
When you use a mattress protector, your mattress can last a lot longer than eight to 10 years. You might get another five or 10 years of use out of your mattress. You can just keep using it until it starts to show signs of functional wear — a dip where you sleep, or broken-down padding, for example.
Don’t let dust mites and bacteria take over your mattress. Keep them out — and keep your mattress clean — with a mattress protector. Your whole family will sleep better knowing their beds really are clean. Thanks to Avocado for consulting.
