A new wave of water beds
Modern water beds bear little resemblance to the wavy ‘Pleasure Pit’ designed in the ’60s for love-in lovers. They’re firmer, sturdier and look more like regular beds. And some use just a little H20.
April 16, 2008 – 9:45PM
By BILL REED
THE GAZETTE – http://www.gazette.com/articles/water_35346___article.html/bed_beds.html
The popularity of water beds ebbs and flows, but the wave is rising again as sleepers open their minds to air, foam, latex, gel, water – or whatever mattress gives them a good night’s rest.
What they’re discovering is that water beds have come a long way since the old days of those sloshy bladders-in-a-box.
Today’s water beds are soft-sided, so they look like a regular bed and use standard sheets. They come with cushy covers that will keep the cat’s claws from popping a hole in your dreams. And the free-flowing waves of the past have given way to a firmer surface. In fact, one of the latest innovations is a “sponge bed” that uses only a little H20.
The current day water bed was created as a groovy part of hippie culture. It was invented in 1967 by Charles Hall, a San Francisco State University grad student in design, who dubbed it the “Pleasure Pit,” and it became a must-have accessory for every love-in loving member of the counterculture, but that was not the first time the world had seen water as a sleeping surface. In fact, the first primitive water beds date all the way back to ancient Egypt!
“I know it’s something people thought of as a fad, and they were,” said John Rush, 57, manager of Better Rest, a bed and mattress store in Colorado Springs. “When they came out, people used them for love-ins, and there’s still that stigma attached.”
Though love beads and lava lamps survive only as kitschy nods to the past, the water bed lived on well past the hippie movement – to a point. According to the Specialty Sleep Association trade group, the water bed industry hit its peak in 1987, then began a 15-year decline, with sales dipping from a high near $2 billion to less than $500 million.
The decline might have had something to do with the quality of the water beds of yore.
“I like the feel of a water mattress, but I switched to Tempur-Pedic because I need support for my back,” said Steve Windom, a customer at the store, and a longtime water bed sleeper whose son now insists on water. “We had lots of problems with leaks and whatever. We decided it was time to move on to something else.” (see that this is no longer a problem in other articles!)
The water bed’s success was also its undoing, said Dale Read, president of the Specialty Sleep Association and publisher of Bedroom magazine.
“In 1985, there was a trade show with 258 exhibitors – everybody and his brother got into water beds, including people who were importing cheap vinyl and merchandise,” Read said.
As the trend faded, that number winnowed to today’s six viable water bed manufacturers, he said.
Those manufacturers have worked to improve quality, and sales are slowly building back.
“People either loved or hated that free-flow product, but that is not the water bed of today, and they’re moving away from what were the biggest problems with water beds,” Read said. “I don’t think the public knows how much they’ve changed. When they walk in to a store they go, ‘Oh, my God, this is a water bed?'”
Rush said he sometimes tricks customers into trying a water bed. He leads them to air beds, foam beds and then a water bed, but with no introduction.
“Let the body do the talking to the mind. If you keep an open mind, you might surprise yourself,” he said. “It’s the most misunderstood bed on the planet.”
Rush said though he sells air, foam and innerspring mattresses, about 75 percent of his sales are water beds. Undoubtedly, part of that is because of display space and his preferences, but he says customers love the comfort and heat of a water bed.
Forty years after the Pleasure Pit debuted, water beds are becoming more popular among an older set more interested in sleeping on their beds than using it for anything else.
“Baby boomers have every kind of ill from working too much, and injuring ourselves being weekend warriors,” Rush said.
He argues that the giving surface is especially good for the natural curve of a woman’s hips, and he’s sold dozens of beds to fibromyalgia sufferers who get relief from the heat and the give.
His piece de resistance – the bed he leads nonbelievers to every time – is the Perfection Frame Free Sponge Bed from InnoMax. It doesn’t feel like a water bed, doesn’t slosh about, and yet it’s soft and warm.
The bed is handmade at InnoMax headquarters in Denver, one of the six remaining manufacturers.
“We don’t even use the W-word,” said Mark Miller, president of InnoMax and inventor of the Perfection Sponge Bed. “We don’t use the word ‘water’ very much because it conjures up images of Wavy Gravy, Beach Boys and getting stuck in the bed.”
His bed is literally a damp sponge inside a vinyl case, with a strip of memory foam on top that is heated from beneath – “that makes it like butter on hot sourdough bread,” Miller said.
He agrees with Read that poor quality control doomed water beds for a time. “When the industry got into price wars, it became a gimmick and toy and became cheap sleep,” he said. “People don’t want cheap sleep; they don’t want to feel like loose meat in a sandwich, and they tired of it.”
But water beds are back. Miller rolled out his sponge bed about a year ago, and it’s been on back order ever since. A few years ago, his sales mix was about 60 percent air, 20 percent foam and 20 percent water. It’s now 60 percent water.
Miller credits the Internet, an aging society and massive ad dollars of companies such as Tempur-Pedic and Select Comfort for persuading consumers to think outside the box spring.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0226 or bill.reed@gazette.com
CATCHING THE WAVE INNOVATIONS IN WATER BED TECHNOLOGY
Soft sides: Old water beds were hard-sided, sometimes called a bladder-in-a-box. New water beds have soft sides, so they look like a regular bed and use standard sheets. And you don’t hurt yourself trying to get in and out.
Covers and pillow tops: Foam covers and pillow tops have been adapted to water beds, so a curious cat or child can’t puncture it easily.
Less wave action: The free-flow waves of yore are gone. Most water beds today use layers of harder substances, or are built with several tubes of water, to create a more stable surface. The “sponge bed” is the latest development in this trend.
Better back support: The firm layers within a water bed are often more dense in the middle section of the bed, providing more lumbar support.
Easier to move: Tube beds and sponge beds have much less water – and less weight – to drain. Also, small electric-powered pumps have become the rage among water bed owners because they can suck the bed dry in a few minutes.
Energy efficiency: Water bed heaters suck less power than they used to, and the new models with less water require less heat. Water bed makers say you can crank up the bed instead of the whole house and actually save money on energy.
Cost: Water beds were expensive for a time, and then cheap (and it showed). Now, a well-made water bed is a mid-range option, costing more than some innersprings but less than most air or foam beds or even fancy pillow tops.
BILL REED, THE GAZETTE
