Playing With Fire Part 2: Does it Even Work?
Posted by Angela Owen | The Sleep Diva on 24th Sep 2026
When we left off, the Chicago Tribune’s 2012 “Playing with Fire” series had just exposed Citizens for Fire Safety — the industry group funded entirely by the three biggest flame retardant manufacturers — as a front group that used fabricated testimony to lobby state legislatures. Here’s what happened next: almost nothing changed, except the letterhead.
Within a
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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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