Sleep Scentsations Pillow Liners: a novel bed-scenting idea

Do you like to scent your bed? I know I do, usually spraying the sheets with a favourite fragrance. Sleep Scentsations Pillow Liners is a novel idea of instant gratification with minimum hassle: little scented liners that are placed under your pillow case to aromatize your pillow and your…dreams! The products were developed by two sisters in Texas:

“After many years as executives in the corporate world, sisters Lynne Sammons and Michelle Fitzwater often found themselves facing an extremely stressful environment. […]After spending what she swore would be her last sleepless night, Lynne and sister Michelle, along with a group of well-trusted associates, spent months researching the effects of essential oils and aromatherapy, as they’d heard that these natural alternatives served as a good method in inducing relaxation. They quickly discovered applications for aromatherapy were often quite cumbersome and costly, and did not bring out the subtle natural effect inherent in fragrance oils. Experimenting with different applications, they came upon an ideal method to enhance a great nights’ sleep; it was easy to use, could be personalized to their liking, and could be taken anywhere….thus Sleep Scentsations ™ was created”.

Or so the story goes.

Personally I would find the approach much more convincing if I hadn’t already heard of the adage of “discerning consumer who couldn’t find what they wanted, so they made their own X product” numerous times, from Donna Karan to Christy Turlington and Iman downwards. There is nothing wrong with having a good business idea, after all! Why not just say it? It even landed them a partnership with the American Hotel Register Company, the world's leading product distributors within the hospitality industry! And since the Wellness and Aromatherapy liners are contra-indicated on the site for pregnant women due to containing essential oils, I'm led to believe the rest do not. But let’s skip my minor gripe and focus on the product itself.

Basically it consists of thin, scented liners which adhere to your pillow (under the pillow-case) and emit their scent for a few days until it’s time to peel them off (they come off very easily, no trace). They’re indeed easy to use, although if you’re accustomed to silk pillowcases you might feel a bit of the screetch-scratch sound at first, but nothing too bad. One observation is that the liners themselves are manuactured in China, while the scent is produced in the US. (It seemed interesting to me). As to the scents, there’s something for every taste.

The categories and respective scents included in the Sleep Scentsations line are:
Aromatherapy: Bliss (mandarin and vanilla), Relaxing (lavender, bergamot, cedar)
Botanical: White Tea & Lily, Wild Flower (tobacco flower, white ginger lily & freesia)
Exotic: Ginger & Amber, Shanghai Nights (flowers & musks)
Fresh: Day at the Beach, Fresh Cut Grass
Sensual: My Boyfriend’s Shirt, Seduction (vanilla, mandarin, amber, honey)
Wellness: Cold RX (A therapeutic blend of essential oils formulated to stimulate relief of congestion, coughs and cold symptoms) and Snore RX (A therapeutic blend of essential oils formulated to suppress snoring)

The three individual liners sent to me to test included Day at the Beach (Fresh category), Ginger & Amber (Exotic category) and My Boyfriend’s Shirt (Sensual category).

From those Day at the Beach was easily my favourite, as it replicates the much sought-after suntan-lotion-effect, filtered by memory into evoking sandy dunes and oiled-up sexy bodies languorously sprawled under the sweltering sun. I admit despite my usually posher tastes, the whiff of a little creamy mandarin-ambery and tropical tiaré/jasmine smell catches my attention more often than not. Pairing it with reading Evil under the Sun, in which the indomitable Arlyna Stuart Marshall is exposing limps as brown as a salty-almond biscuit, is quite blissful.
Ginger Lily & Amber has a spicy and aqueous undertone beneath the soft, waxy and powdery floralcy which is pleasant, if not too memorable. Still, I expect that it would be quite pretty to many people, especially those who are fans of clean white florals and it makes for an inobtrusive prelude to sleep.
My Boyfriend’s Shirt is the least remarkable in the trio and the harshest in its aromatic fougère genre; if my boyfriend used comparable cologne, I guess he wouldn’t be my boyfriend! This is one that needs reworking in my opinion because it deduces from the impression left from the other two.

Sleep Scentsations Pillow Liners can be purchased online on the official site. One pack for a 30-day-supply costs $19.99.

Disclaimer: I was sent three individual liners as part of a PR giveaway.
Photo: Gisele Bundchen shot by Mario Testino for Vanity Fair.