This could be the best sleep mask ever – Silk contoured sleep mask

If you travel a lot, or you just need to sleep during daytime, you know that a good sleep mask is priceless. I have tried so many sleep masks through the years, but I have never managed to find one that ticked all the boxes. So I decided to make my own, and together with the women at CWSG we started working on the best sleep mask ever. It took more than three months and 20 prototypes to come up with the final design, but it was all worth it, and I am so happy and proud of what we have created. This is a wonderful, wonderful sleep mask!

Here is why it is so great:

It has plenty of room for your eyes and your lashes

Flat sleep masks have just never worked for me. The pressure from the mask on my eyes makes it difficult to blink, resulting in dry, irritated eyes. Besides, flat sleep masks are not compatible with eye make-up and lash extensions.

Flat sleep masks have just never worked for me, because the pressure from the mask on my eyes makes it difficult to blink, resulting in dry, irritated eyes. Besides, flat sleep masks are not compatible with eye make-up and lash extensions, which I wear now and then.

I thus knew that I wanted to make a contoured sleep mask, so I reached out to Metric Products which is a US company that holds the patent for the type of contoured core that I wanted inside my mask. They have developed a patented material, Metric 66, which is super lightweight, hypoallergenic and environmentally friendly, just what I was looking for. As we were talking, I found out that Metric Products runs several social projects in Sri Lanka, where their production facilities are located, so I did not hesitate long, before I placed my order.

My sleep mask has 20mm deep eye cups, so you can blink away as much as you like, even with eye lash extensions. The mask also prevents you from accidentally scratching your eyes, which further help prolong the life of your lash extensions, and if you take a nap on board the train or the plane you will not have to worry about waking up looking like a panda. The sleep mask will make sure that your eye make-up does not get smudged all over your face.

It is made with super soft Peace Silk

When it comes to that super soft, luxurious feeling, nothing compares to silk. Though in traditional silk production, the silkworms are gassed or boiled alive, which I thought sounded wasteful. For my sleep masks I therefore decided to use Peace Silk, which is silk made without killing the silkworms. Instead, the worms are allowed to hatch from their cocoons and become beautiful butterflies.  

The outer layer of the sleep mask is 100% Peace Silk satin, which has a shiny, soft surface that feels wonderful against the skin so you will wake up looking just as rejuvenated as you feel. The sleep mask comes with a handwoven pouch so it is easy to bring along when you are on the go.

It is adjustable

It was important for me that the sleep mask was adjustable so it would be comfortable to wear for any head size. The easy solution, which many other sleep mask makers use, is Velcro, but if you have long hair like me, you know why Velcro is a terrible idea:) Velcro gets entangled in your hair but it also loses some of its stickiness over time, so we quickly started looking for other options.

We tried bra sliders, hooks and buttons, but they were not very comfortable or they were too difficult to adjust, so for a while we were considering not having adjustment at all, but instead just using an elastic band. Though finding the optimal length of the band was difficult. The mask would be too tight for people with big heads and too loose for people with smaller heads. Furthermore, elastic band gets less elastic over time so a good fit now would turn into a too loose fit over time.

So after all the trial and error above, we finally decided on ribbons, as that would allow for the best adjustment of the fit of the mask. At first I was skeptical towards ribbons, as I thought the bow would be uncomfortable to sleep on, but I was surprised to find out that if you tie the ribbon and place the knot at the back of your head where the skull and the neck meet, you do not feel it at all. I sleep on my back, so you can take my word for it.

The ribbons have an elastic part which makes sure the mask fit tightly, and the edge of the mask is lined with Peace Silk fiber to make the fit even better and the mask even more comfortable to wear.

It is handmade and fair

It is the women at CWSG who make the sleep masks. CWSG is a women artisan group in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the group helps disadvantaged and marginalized women get a source of income and social support.

We spent many late evenings making prototypes and discussing the design, and they played a big part in transforming the sleep mask from an idea that seemed impossible into the final product.

The white and pink Lucky Cat is my favorite, and that design just happened by coincidence. I had asked Kanary’s (the founder of CWSG) daughter Katherine to make some suggestions for decorations and she drew the cat because that was something, she would love to wear herself. It was not in the style I had originally imagined for the sleep masks, but when I saw the cat, I immediately fell in love:)