Is This Elegear Cooling Blanket Really Worth All the Hype?

Is This Elegear Cooling Blanket Really Worth All the Hype?
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The hot, stickiness of January is something I dread each year, especially when it comes to my sleep. For months, I’ve been searching for a sheet set that will accommodate a hot sleeper like my partner. So, when I caught wind of Elegear’s Revolutionary cooling blankets, I knew I had to try it.

A cooling blanket is a unique type of throw or duvet that is made from natural, lightweight and breathable materials to accommodate hot sleepers. While some materials work to keep heat in, these blankets work to release all of the heat that gets trapped under the sheets in summer. Some even happen to be moisture-wicking and draw the sweat away from your skin, so you don’t wake up in a little puddle.

First impressions

cooling blanket
Reverse side vs Arc-Chill side. Image: Isabella Noyes/Lifehacker Australia

Upon unwrapping the Elegear Revolutionary cooling blanket, I was immediately impressed with how cool the fabric felt. It was almost as if I’d stuffed it in the refrigerator for an hour. I was given the second largest size (79″ x 86″) in grey. It’s an ideal size for a queen bed, so it suits mine just fine, plus there’s plenty of blanket to share between you and your partner. The material itself is soft but very thin and light like a top sheet.

I’ve always been told that linen sheets are some of the best blankets to use in the summer, so I was a little sceptical when I read on the tag that one side was made from 100% cotton and the other was made from 80% nylon and 20% polyethylene. While cotton has a reputation for being a breathable natural fibre, polyethylene (while lightweight and cooling) is often said to lock in moisture.

While keeping cool is a priority for me and my partner, I personally prioritise how well a sheet will combat a case of the night sweats. But you’ll have your answer soon enough.

The product description remarks that it’s made from Japanese Arc-Chill fabric, which is renowned for being an eco-friendly type of material that was engineered for hot sleepers. Ranked within the Q-Max factor, there are supposedly five levels of coolness. The lowest is said to be zero whereas the highest, and therefore the coolest level is 0.5.

Elegear’s Revolutionary cooling blanket sits at 0.4, so while it’s not the coolest blanket you can find, it’s still designed to release as much of your body heat as possible while sleeping.

How did we go with the Elegear cooling blanket?

Image: Isabella Noyes/Lifehacker Australia

I slept with one of the Elegear Revolutionary cooling blankets for a week this summer and the first thing I want to talk about is its coolness factor. As I mentioned above, it feels like using a top sheet or maybe even a throw blanket. That’s all well and good if you’re not someone who likes to sleep with a plushy duvet even when it’s hot.

Between my partner and myself, he’s the hot sleeper. He tends to sleep with the fan on full blast during the night, otherwise, he wakes up covered in sweat. If there was a hot sleeper scale from one to 10, with one being ‘could sleep through a fire’ and 10 being ‘help, I’m drowning’, I would rate my partner’s night sweats as a 10.

As for me, I probably sit around a three on the hot sleeper scale. While most of the time I sleep like a baby through the heat, the last week has given me plenty of sleepless nights. The cooling blanket has done a great job at keeping me cool on most nights, but on the hottest ones, I’ve had to kick it off and switch on the fan.

Overall, even after it rests against your bare skin for an hour, it still feels nice and cool. If you love the feeling of kicking your legs through cold sheets, you’re going to love how fresh this blanket makes you feel.

Even though the Elegear cooling blanket feels cold to the touch and does a great job at releasing body heat, it does little to absorb any sweat. If anything, it rejects it. So while the cooling blanket is helpful, the hottest of sleepers may still want to hang onto their pedestal fans.

Note: I did use a bamboo fitted sheet and pillowcases during this review period, in addition to the cooling blanket.

Should you buy the Elegear cooling blanket?

Image: Isabella Noyes/Lifehacker Australia

That depends.

There’s always one person in a relationship that can’t fall asleep with the fan on (me) and one person who can’t go without it, so if you were hoping this cooling blanket would solve all your troubles, I’m sorry to say it won’t. Perhaps you should embrace the Scandinavian sleeping method where one person sleeps with the cooling blanket and the other sleeps with the normal one.

If you rank low on my hot sleeper scale, you don’t need to upgrade past bamboo or linen sheets. But for someone that ranks an eight or higher, I’d still recommend grabbing the Elegear cooling blanket. It still makes a world of difference when you suffer from frequent heat-driven insomnia.

Where to buy one of these blankets for summer

You can buy the Elegear Revolutionary cooling blanket from Amazon Australia here for $89.99 (down from $99.99). It’s available in an array of colours, from beige, navy blue and black to a number of striped patterns. It also comes in four sizes to accommodate a single up to a king-sized bed.


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At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

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