PREMIUM OR HIGH END BRANDS OF WARMING BEDDING

WESTPOINT STEVENS® – the oldest and largest American manufacturer of bed and bath textile products has been in and out of the electric blanket or electric mattress pad market for the last several years. Their current line of blanket products is more expensive than the low price brands above but features an excellent safe technology and superior fabric softness and washability.

The only complaint we find is that their heater wires, although flexible, are quite large. Their warming mattress pad products are mediocre and usually found under the Sleepwarmer® brand.

Look for WestPoint Stevens’s electric blankets or electric mattress pads at Sears, Linens and Things, JCPenney, Target and an occasional upscale department store under the Restwarmer® or Sleep Warmer® or Martex® brand names. This list is quite subject to change due to WestPoint Stevens’s continuing precarious financial position.

PERFECT FIT INDUSTRIES® – another venerable USA textile company (since 1932) has been producing top of the line electric blankets and electric mattress pads also since the year 2000. Their electric blankets and electric mattress pads are the only major line of low voltage warming bedding in this country. In fact UL classifies their products as using “non-hazardous Class 2 low voltage”. The major advantages of their products are that a) it is virtually impossible to get an electric shock even if the blanket or pad becomes wet (e.g. incontinence or drink spill) or the heater wire insulation should become cut or punctured (for example from a pet’s sharp claw); b) their heater wires are far smaller and more flexible than any other producer’s; c) their fabrics are soft and first class d) their products are fully machine dryable. Additionally the cord connector on their mattress pads is located off the sleeping surface on the vertical skirting that holds the product in place to the mattress so that no part of the body hits it while sleeping.

The disadvantages are a) a higher cost and b) in addition to the controller, the product has a somewhat large (approximately 6” X 3” X 2”) power supply necessary to convert the wall outlet 120VAC to low voltage DC. The company says that the power supply box can be permanently located under the bed, out of the way and out of sight. Additionally their early models had some occasional problems with the power supply causing radio or TV interference but the occurrence of these problems seems to have been eliminated for the past several years.

In 2006, the Wall Street Journal published its own electric blanket review and rated the Perfect Fit blanket the best of all concluding “this is the one we fought over”. Additionally every year the Hammacher Schlemmer Institute rates this blanket as the “best overall”.

Perfect Fit warming products can be hard to locate because the company distributes all their production under private labels (i.e. not under the name Perfect Fit). However look under the following brands: SoftHeat®, SoftHeat Luxury Collection®, Heatwave™ and Chattam & Wells®. The list of recognizable stores carrying their products reads like a who’s-who in retailing: Macy’s Department Stores, Select Comfort mattress stores, Williams Sonoma Catalog, Lands’ End Catalog, Hammacher Sky Mall, and regional department stores such as Belk’s in the Southeast and Gottschalk’s in the West.