Playing With Fire, Part 1: How We Ended Up With Chemicals in Our Beds
Posted by Angela Owen, Sleep Diva on 24th Aug 2026
I sold my first mattress in 2000, out of a little retail store in Boulder, Colorado called Boulder By Design. Back then, there was exactly one flammability hurdle a mattress had to clear: the cigarette test. Lab techs would set 18 lit cigarettes on a mattress surface — nine on the bare surface, nine tucked under two sheets — and if the char never spread more than two inches, it passed.
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