When influencing goes wrong

I used to promote a water-cooled mattress topper. Then I stopped. Here's the tea, because I promise to always be transparent with you.

I was waking up in the middle of the night dripping in sweat. This wasn’t a “got a little sweaty” moment. This was a, “I can wring my shirt out, and my bottom sheet has a Melissa-shaped sweat imprint.” I wasn’t hot, either—I felt chilly, but wet. I’d get up, wash off, and fully change before I get back into bed. I’d also put another towel down on the bed to lie on, to keep the damp sheet away from my clean pajamas.

This happened a few times a week, and signaled the real start of perimenopause. Despite turning our AC down to 63 degrees overnight, I could not regulate my temperature as I slept. It was both gross and exhausting.

The solution (or so I thought)

In April 2019, a brand of water-cooled mattress topper reached out and sent me a unit to test. Water flowed throughout the mattress topper overnight, powered by a machine used to heat or cool the water. After a few issues (the product was new, and I received their “beta” version), I was able to set the temperature to a chilly 65 degrees, and make my own adjustments as needed throughout the night. The hot flashes stopped. I saved money on my air conditioning too, as we no longer needed to make the house so cold. The product also allowed my husband to set his own temperature, so we both slept comfortably.

As a result of my personal experience, I began making content for this brand. Many of you bought the product, and I received positive feedback for the next year, through the next iteration of the design. The units (which ran north of $2,000) worked as promised, and you were all sleeping better.

In mid-2022, that started to change. The brand released another updated product, and on the occasions when it worked, it was magical. However, I had nothing but problems with it. A few of our units leaked; I woke up twice to a carpet soaked through with water. Another unit made a grating noise and wouldn’t get up to temperature. Still another refused to respond to any button pressing, and flashed a weird error code that nobody could figure out. Another replacement unit would randomly increase the temp to over 100 degrees in the middle of the night. (This happened twice; once I woke up to a 104 degree mattress.)

I worked with the brand closely, and they were excellent about taking my feedback, troubleshooting, and sending me new units. But I was also hearing similar complaints from you. Like mine, your units weren’t working well either, and their customer service was starting to slip. I had to intervene a few times with my contact at the brand, after you sent message after message to their customer service team with no resolution.

The break-up

In February 2023, I told the brand I could no longer work with them. I wrote:

“At this point, I'm not interested in a replacement unit--it's just not worth the continued trouble. We've talked about the issues before, and I'm at the point where I can no longer recommend the sleep systems to my community. We've had way too many issues since the very first iteration for me to feel confident in the product… As such, I'm going to move on from the partnership.”

I didn’t make an announcement publicly—I simply stopped promoting them, and took my landing page off their site. When you asked about the product via DM, I was honest but vague in my reply: “Unfortunately, I can’t recommend them any longer.”

Later that year, the company appeared to fold. Their website and social media presence disappeared overnight. Per a huge number of complaints on Reddit, they left many customers stranded. Those needing service for broken or faulty units received no response. Others reported the brand was no longer honoring their warranty. Still others had bought the product, but it never arrived, and they couldn’t get in touch with anyone for an update or refund.

A few months after that, I received a marketing email from this brand in my in-box. They appeared to be back in business—but there was no mention of the disruption of service, nor did they address the hundreds of complaints I was reading online. It felt like, “Hey, y’all, buy our stuff again, and we’re not gonna talk about where we went for a few months there.” I was not impressed with their reentry, and was relieved that I’d decided to stop working with them before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan.

Transparency is important

I was glad I stopped promoting them, but felt terribly for those of you who were stuck in their customer service nightmare. I did as much as I could to help troubleshoot and rectify your issues, but I know at least a few of you were (at least temporarily) left stuck with a malfunctioning product.

I’m sharing this story for a few reasons. First, I still get questions from people asking, “Are you still using that water-cooled mattress topper?” Now that my contract (and non-disclosure clause) is well expired, I wanted to be transparent in the history of this partnership, and why I stopped promoting them so suddenly.

I also wanted to share this story as an apology to any one of you caught up in their customer service issues. As I’ve mentioned before, when I work with a partner, I consider myself an extension of the brand. Given our history, I gave the brand the benefit of the doubt, assuming these issues were fixable. I hate that it went downhill so fast, with my name attached to it.

My new solution

Third, and perhaps the most pertinent to you, I explored three other options to keep my sleeping temp cool and regulated. In March 2023, I settled on the Eight Sleep mattress topper.

The Eight Sleep system requires virtually no maintenance, save refilling the tank every six months or so. It has never malfunctioned on us—not once. It heats up and cools down fast, has dual programming for each side of the bed, and auto-adjusts as you sleep. (And I don’t need to open the app or wake up to hunt for buttons in the middle of the night to adjust the temperature manually, which is a huge bonus.) My hot flashes are, again, a thing of the past; I haven’t had a single one while using the Eight Sleep.

Eight Sleep, which I’ve now been using for 2-1/2 years with zero issues

I waited more than two years to talk about this new product because I wanted to be certain the product and brand would exceed expectations. (I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.) In fact, over the years, I’d communicated often with the partner marketing team at Eight Sleep, who asked many times if I’d want to work with them officially. I held off until now. After three summers with this product, I can confidently say THIS is the long-term solution I’d been hoping that other brand would provide.

I’ll write up a full review, share all the details, and answer any questions you may have about the product soon. But first, I needed to share this history (as uncomfortable as it is), so you’d not wonder, “Why did she suddenly switch brands?”

Thanks for reading, and for all the support and feedback you’ve offered along the way. I take my “influencing” seriously, and retaining your trust is the most important part of that role.

XO, MU

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This post contains affiliate links. If you’ve been eyeing the Eight Sleep or looking for a solution to hot flashes, disrupted sleep, or trouble falling asleep, use the code MELISSAU to save $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra (which includes the mattress topper and mattress base), or $200 off the Pod 5 Core (just the mattress topper—which is what we have).