The sleep mask was patented in 1930 as a sleep eye shade, and Audrey Hepburn made it glamorous in 1961. Here are four silk ones from Slip, other masks and sleep tools, and a short wind-down routine.
The Sleep Mask, From a 1930 Patent to Slip Silk
Edward and Elsie Hemphill of California filed a patent for a sleep eye shade in 1930, a shield meant for people while sleeping so that their rest would not be disturbed by light rays. About thirty years later, Audrey Hepburn slept in an ornate turquoise mask with felt lashes in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the sleep mask has been a little bit glamorous ever since. Slip is the brand I think of first. In 2003, Fiona Stewart was prescribed acne medication that left her skin sensitive and her hair thinning, and her dermatologist suggested sleeping on silk. She could not find a good one, so she wrapped the best silk she could source around her pillow, and in 2004 she and Justin Dubois launched Slip, the first silk pillowcase sold as a beauty product. The masks came later, made from the same long-fiber mulberry silk. The classic one is flat and soft, the two contour masks have a domed shape that keeps silk off your lashes, and the bride version is made as a gift. Pick a contour one if you have lash extensions. I also put together slip Sleep Masks: Silk for a Better Night's Rest.
Blackout, sound and light
The second row covers the rest of the dark. Therabody, the company that grew out of the chiropractor Jason Wersland's Theragun, makes its own mask. Drowsy was started by two brothers, Thom and Rich Hemelryk, who developed insomnia running hospitality businesses and spent about a year testing prototypes before launching their first mask, silk with a blackout strip inside. Their masks sold out in minutes after a UK beauty editor showed one on British morning television. The Ostrichpillow team, who launched their first pillow on Kickstarter in 2012, also make the Orbit earplugs. Izipizi's sleeping glasses were developed with an optometry researcher and block artificial light in the evening, which is the part of the night that is easy to forget. I went deeper on a related idea in Drowsy Sleep Mask vs Nodpod: Silk and Weighted Masks.
Two masks, earplugs and blue-light glasses
The wind-down, and the skip
The last row is what I do before the mask goes on. HigherDOSE, which began in 2016 as New York City's first infrared sauna, makes a magnesium bath soak called Serotonin Soak. Kate McLeod was a pastry chef who tempered cocoa butter like chocolate to make her solid moisturizers, and the Sleep Pebble is a small solid bath and shower oil with lavender for the evening. Amika's overnight hair mask works while you sleep, and Tammy Fender's lavender body oil is a blend of light natural oils. What I would skip is putting a scented oil on your face before a silk mask. It stains the silk. Keep the oils below the neck. If you want to keep going, Sleepmaxxer Mask: Why a Silk Sleep Mask Makes Sense is the one I would read next.
Caring for silk
Hand wash silk masks in cool water with a gentle detergent, then dry them flat and out of the sun. Wash every week or two, and more often if you wear night cream. Replace the mask when the elastic stretches out. A good silk mask should last years if you treat it this way, and it only gets softer.
