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Beds in the News After her son was born last June, Leslie Andrews found herself turning on the television every time she had to breast-feed. With 2 a.m. entertainment offerings being what they are, Andrews often found herself in infomercial land. "There's only so many 'Diff'rent Strokes' episodes that a girl can endure," said Andrews, who lives in Westbrook. "So I'd watch these Tempur-Pedic infomercials in almost a daze." After a night or two of sleep deprivation and listening to abnormally cheerful people expound on the virtues of viscoelastic foam, Andrews became entranced by the idea of sleeping on a bed that had been approved and embraced by NASA. She soon began the hard sell on her unsuspecting husband, Troy. Planting seeds. Bringing up the idea of a new mattress when they were driving around in the car and he had no way to escape. Oh, look. There's a mattress store. Did you know Tempur-Pedic is a Swedish design? By mid-July, they were the new owners of a queen-sized Tempur-Pedic mattress. "A week later, he said 'That Tempur-Pedic is something special,' " Andrews said, a little smugly. Andrews, who admits she sometimes talks more about her new mattress than her new baby, has joined the cult of Tempur-Pedic - those glassy-eyed folks who spend $100 for a pillow or $1,000 to $3,000 or more for a mattress and don't understand why everyone doesn't run out and do the same. Well, for one thing, some people think that if you're going to drop a C-note on a pillow, it should also massage your neck and make you a martini. Is all this buzz for real? Or can you get the same level of support and comfort at half the cost by purchasing one of the many knock-off products coming onto the market, such as the "Bob-O-Pedic" promoted by Bob's Discount Furniture? As the infomercials will tell you, the Tempur-Pedic foam has its genesis in NASA technology. The material was developed for space shuttle seats, to absorb the G-forces that batter astronauts on liftoff and landing. The Tempur-Pedic company took that formula and tweaked it in important but secret ways. The Tempur-Pedic foam is made of something called viscoelastic cells that resist changing shape when a sleeper lies down and return to their original shape when the sleeper shifts position or gets up. While traditional foams have "closed cells" that can build up body heat, the Tempur-Pedic material uses an "open cell" technology that adjusts to both the sleeper's weight and temperature. The result is that the material supports and conforms to the body, relieving the pressure that normally cuts off circulation and leads to nights of tossing and turning. VALUING A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP Our parents and grandparents would have fainted at the thought of paying $1,899 for an entry-level queen-sized mattress set or $3,299 for the ultra-luxurious "Celebrity" mattress in the same size. But baby boomers are already spoiled. They're aging fast and want to do something besides popping a pill to ease their aches and pains. Plus, they're knowledgeable about all the recent research that has shown a good night's sleep can make you more productive and even help you lose weight. "Consumers are tending to spend more on bedding, and a large part of the buying power lies with baby boomers who have disposable incomes," said Nancy Shark, vice president of communications for the International Sleep Products Association. "They also have good reason to re-evaluate their sleep surface because, as you age, you can tend to develop some aches and pains you didn't have before. You might gain some weight, you might gain or lose a sleep partner." That's what accounts for the growing popularity of pillow-top comfort layers and other "specialty sleep" products, such as air beds, viscoelastic foam beds, water beds, latex mattresses and adjustable beds. Although specialty sleep still represents just 5 percent to 10 percent of the $5 billion wholesale mattress market - some experts say it's closer to 15 percent to 20 percent - some companies are seeing double-digit growth every year. "In the U.S., we've grown on a compounded annual growth rate of 50 percent per year since we started," said Thomas Bryant, president of the Lexington, Ky.-based Tempur-Pedic. "We're now doing business in 60 countries, and our international business was up about 29 percent last year." The company is building a new manufacturing plant in Albuquerque to keep up with demand. It currently has factories in Denmark and Virginia. Bryant is convinced that his product is the wave of the future. "Innersprings was invented by a blacksmith 100 years ago and really hasn't changed in 100 years," he said. "You think about technology touching and improving our lives everywhere but where most people spend a third of their life. That's the reason we're growing so fast." RELIEVING BACK PAIN Liz Waldron and her husband, Bud, are typical specialty sleep customers. The couple, who live in Scarborough, went shopping for a new mattress because Bud's hip was bothering him and their mattress felt too firm. Liz spied a Tempur-Pedic on the showroom floor and commented that it looked comfortable. "He said, 'It's too expensive, don't lie down on it,' " she recalled. "Well, we both did, and we decided we were going to spend the night in the store." Although the mattress now feels a bit too soft for Liz , she's willing to stick with it because of what it's done for her husband. He no longer has to take a pain reliever before bedtime - and that, not the price of the mattress, is the bottom line for them. "We're in our mid-50s, and you get to the point where there are few things in life that are more important than a good night's sleep," she said. Travis McCracken, who sells Tempur-Pedic products at the SleepQuarters store at Clarks Pond, said most people who walk through the door looking for a new mattress have already thoroughly researched the Tempur-Pedic brand and just want to road-test it. There's no gray area, he said. Either they like it or they don't. "Almost immediately I can tell if a customer likes it or not, when they sit in it and I see their response," McCracken said. "It's either 'Oooh, aaahh, wow,' or it's a 'Yeesh, I feel like I'm too consumed.' " SleepQuarters also sells some of the imitators, including an import from China and a mattress that looks like a spring mattress but has viscoelastic foam along with polyfill under the cover. Mattress manufacturers once looked upon the specialty sleep market, especially Tempur-Pedic, as minor competition. Now, many companies have come out with their own versions of the product and slashed the price to draw customers. Kathleen Lally, a 39-year-old retired police officer from Portland, has found happiness with one of these alternative products. Originally she bought a Tempur-Pedic pillow to help her deal with her migraines. She thought the price was "pretty steep" for a pillow. "Then I got into a car accident right after that, and I don't think I could have slept at all if I'd had a regular pillow," she said. When it came time to purchase another pillow, however, she bought a knock-off for $50 and has found it suits her needs just as well. "There's really hardly any difference at all," she said. Nate Greenleaf, a 29-year-old from Washington, has chronic back pain because of the nature of his work servicing refrigerators and air conditioners. "I go see a masseuse and that usually takes care of it, but some nights I'd just lay there in pain," he said. Since last spring, he's been sleeping on viscoelastic foam, and it has made "a tremendous difference." "I sleep all night long," he said. "When they say you feel like you're sleeping on a cloud, they're not blowing smoke." TESTING THE COMPETITORS But Greenleaf is not - surprise - talking about a Tempur-Pedic mattress. Greenleaf says he just couldn't justify spending the money on Tempur-Pedic, so he researched the issue on his own. He found that the Tempur-Pedic material is much denser than the alternatives, about 5 pounds per cubic foot compared with 3 to 3.5 pounds for other viscoelastic foams. "The difference when you lay down on (5-pound density foam) is a dramatic difference," he said. "It's softer, it forms to your body better. The lower the number of the density, the more it feels like traditional foam. It springs back really quickly and you don't really sink down into it." So Greenleaf ordered a thick chunk of 5-pound density foam from a foam warehouse, and voila, he had a mattress. Cost: $600-$700. "You get basically the same thing as a Tempur-Pedic, you're just not paying for the name brand," he said. That's not true, says Bryant, president of Tempur-Pedic. Bryant's company is aggressively going after other companies that are jumping on the viscoelastic bandwagon and advertising their product is the same thing as the Tempur-Pedic brand. When Tempur-Pedic started having a lot of success, he said, competitors began going to foam suppliers and asking for the same kind of material, then assembling it into beds. But Tempur-Pedic manufactures its foam at its own factories, using a proprietary process. Knockoff products are usually made of the original NASA formula, not the improved Tempur-Pedic version, Bryant said. Bryant said what makes Tempur-Pedic unique is the combination of its density and its "rebound." "How it supports the person is called the rebound," he said. "We've seen some companies come out with denser material, but the rebound and recovery time isn't there yet." Leslie Andrews said she and her husband considered buying their mattress from Bob's Discount Furniture because the lower price was so alluring. "To be totally honest with you, I really did not feel that much of a difference," she said. "We just couldn't bring ourselves to say 'One Bob-O-Pedic, please.' " Andrews likes the way her Tempur-Pedic mattress absorbs motion, so she doesn't feel anything when her husband gets up in the middle of the night. And she can put the baby on the bed without worrying that he'll slide around. ODOR COMPLAINTS But it's not all hearts and flowers in Tempur-Pedic land. "It's a little disheartening if you sit down and then you get up off the bed and you see your imprint on the bed," Andrews said, noting that people get a quick impression of their true size. It can be startling. Forget about using an electric blanket or heating pad. Because the products absorb heat so well, direct heat can affect the mattress' performance so that it doesn't provide as much support. And then there's that occasional odor. Like Andrews, Wendy Beaucage had seen the Tempur-Pedic infomercials and was tempted enough to check out one of the pillows at a Brookstone store. "When I tried it in person, it seemed to do everything it said it did on TV, which made me want it," she said. "I'm an American, right?" Her husband bought her a queen-size pillow for Christmas. But when she took it out of the box, a strong chemical smell made her eyes water, nose burn and throat hurt. She returned the pillow. Similar stories can be found on the Internet, posted by disgruntled customers. The company says the odor is a harmless byproduct of the manufacturing process that doesn't happen often, and that airing out the pillow or mattress for a few days will take care of the problem. Despite these issues, the cult of Tempur-Pedic seems to be thriving. Sherry Thomas, a 55-year-old seminary student from Portland, picked out a queen-size mattress with her husband. It has, she said, "changed our lives." The couple suffer from various aches and pains, especially in their middle-aged joints. Thomas works at the Portland Jetport and spends a lot of time on her feet, and she also has a chronic shoulder injury.They've found the new bed to be so comfortable that when they go on vacation, they can't wait to get home. "You just lie in this bed and it's 'Thank you. Thank you for making me feel better,' " Sherry Thomas said. Then she jokes: "This is not a paid testimonial, by the way." Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at: mgoad@pressherald.com Shower
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