Everything You Need To Know About Creating A Beautiful Bedroom
After traveling for so many years and spending different nights in so many beds around the world, from luxury 5* hotels to glamping pods. I appreciate just how nice a comfortable, relaxing, and beautiful bedroom is. Did you know we spend around 26 years sleeping in our life which equates to 9,490 days or 227,760 hours? Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep. That's 33 years or 12,045 days spent in bed! Why wouldn't you want to invest in your bedroom with all that time spent in there? Here is everything you need to know about creating a beautiful bedroom.
There are a few elements you might like to consider from the position of the bed (feng shui) to colour scheme. Let's dive in with creating a sustainable bedroom by Emily Doe from Beyond Bamboo.
Creating a sustainable bedroom
By Emily Doe, Brand Warrior, Beyond Bamboo
If you want to help promote your own health and protect the environment at the same time, it’s important to think about the room you spend most of your time in – your bedroom. Consider what materials your bedding, furniture and other soft furnishing are made from and what happens to the items you are replacing. It is actually very easy to make sustainable swaps – it just takes a few minutes to think about the options, rather than ‘do the usual’.
Bedding and soft furnishings
One of the easiest sustainable swaps in your bedroom will be your bedding and soft furnishings. Although these items do tend to be replaced more often, they are easy to re-use (for example as dust sheets, thrown over the sofa to prevent dog hairs or cut into rags for cleaning), or recycle (most charity shops will take them, and they are then sold as rags – this earns the charity money and means the fabric is re-used). Alternatively, many animal rescue centres will take old bedding to give their residents something soft to sleep on.
However, they aren’t generally items we buy second-hand, so, when buying new, look for bedding made from sustainable materials such as organic hemp, linen, cotton, bamboo (Modal), and eucalyptus (Lyocell/Tencel). The benefits are multiple: antibacterial properties; chemical-free; moisture wicking; comfort; and long-lasting durability.
Also consider the materials your duvet and pillows are made from. Is it cruelty free? For example, avoid feathers and down – an animal has had to suffer (quite horrifically) to make that pillow or duvet. Duvets are often made from unsustainable (plastic-based) materials and therefore it may be worth thinking about moving away from duvets altogether and going back to traditional blankets and throws for your bedding. However, if you do choose this route, you’ll still need to check that the throws, rugs and blankets do not contain plastic and are cruelty free.
It's important to note that Polyester Fibre fill, is hazardous to health and the environment, yet gets promoted as vegan, as do microbeads: hence the importance of finding bedding companies that create bedding from natural, sustainable fibres where possible.
For example, there are pillows and mattresses made of organic latex. The Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS) establishes a clear path and procedure on the route from farmer level to the certified organic latex product manufacturer. Among other factors, manufacturers that are given the approval to produce organic products under the GOLS logo must follow mandatory social and environmental