How often should you wash your mattress protector?
We are often asked how often a mattress protector should be washed. The issue arises from whether the mattress protector is part of the mattress or part of your bed linen.
Most people change and wash their bedding on a weekly basis, this includes the duvet cover, fitted sheet and pillowcases but often the mattress protector is left behind on the mattress awaiting the arrival of the new clean sheets and bedding. The thing is that anything that makes your bottom fitted sheet dirty or smelly is almost certainly doing the same to the mattress protector below, perhaps not quite to the same extent but certainly to a partial extent. For this reason there is a valid and strong argument that your mattress protector should be washed along with the rest of your bedding on a weekly basis.
However there may be reasons why someone might choose not to. Maybe they only have the one mattress protector per bed and don't want to wait for it to be washed and dried before making the bed up again. The obvious answer here is to have two mattress protectors per bed. One on the bed and the other in storage after washing and drying ready to use on the next wash day. If you do only have one then of course you could strip the bed in the morning, wash and dry everything and make the bed up later in the day.
Maybe for some people they just don't have the washing machine capacity or space to wash and dry the mattress protector as well as all the rest of the bedding. Here we are back to having spares in storage soi that the washing and drying can be spread over a few days or a week.
How imprtant is it to actually wash your mattress protector frequently? Over time your mattress protector will soak up perspiration and other bodily fluids. It will contain tiny particles of skin which encorage dust mites to live in them, especially if your mattress protector is quite thick or has any sort of padded or quilted surface. This contamination builds up over time. Moisture from perspiration leads to a build up of bacteria, fungus and mould, so the more often you can wash your mattress protector the cleaner and fresher it will be to sleep on.
This leads us to washing temperatures because this bacteria and mould and those dust mites will quite happily survive a cool wash. If your mattress protector can only be washed at 30c or 40c then you are just giving them a bath and putting them back on the bed. You need a minimum of a 60c wash to destroy dust mites and bacteria.
Some sources suggest that your mattress protector only needs to be washed maybe half a dozen times a year, this is clearly not the case because over a few months of not being washed the protector will build up quite a varied contamination of dust mites and mould and will have started to smell by then.
So in conclusion, if possible wash your mattress along with the rest of your bedding. Just strip the bed back to the bare mattress, duvet and pillows and wash all the bedding together, dry it together and it's ready to use again. better still just like you have alternative duvet covers and sheets, have spare mattress protectors too. That way you strip your bed completely and straiht away make up the entire bed with new bedding and a clean mattress protector and put all the used ones into your wash and dry process, ready to go back onto the bed when you next to a bedding change.
Our best selling high wash temperature breathable waterproof mattress protector is Allergon
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