Face a new-ish you in the a.m!

First of all, this is a really nice quality pillowcase; it is silky smooth, beautifully made, and washes wonderfully. But here is what separates this covering from all the other nicely crafted, soft-as-can-be competitors; information straight from pubmed.gov, an online publisher of abstracts from medical journals.

Researchers from South Korea published a study in 2012 comparing outcomes in just over 60 volunteer sleepers sleeping(1), half of whom plopped their heads on pillows covered in cases made with copper-impregnated fibers, the other half just snoozing on the usual coverings. They theorized that the copper-loaded variety would reduce skin wrinkles because the mineral is known to promote the production of skin proteins and stabilize the matrix of skin as well. A stable and protein-loaded skin matrix just can't be bad when it comes to the effects of sun, gravity, and aging as the years progress.

Expert 'skin graders' were called in to check out the faces of both groups. Neither graders nor subjects knew which group got copper and which group got none. At 4 and 8 weeks into the two month study, copper sleepers had a significant reduction in 'crow's feet' wrinkles while the control group demonstrated no change at all. Furthermore, 3-D studies measuring three 'roughness parameters' (as in 'gee that's rough, you're skin's a mess?!?) also strongly favored copper bedding; notably improved roughness indicators were present only in the copper group with an average improvement of 9% per month. These results echo earlier findings by an Israeli study conducted in 2009(2). These volunteers, aged 40-60, spent a mere month on copper or no copper cases. As shown in the study above, expert graders (two of them, a dermatologist and a cosmetologist) agreed there was significant improvement in wrinkles, crow's feet, and overall appearance.

My own study group of one--me that is--concurs! I figure that boldly eyeing one's face in a magnifying mirror first thing in the morning, with reading glasses on makes one an amateur skin grader, and I'm attesting that the fine wrinkles, the crow's feet, and general roughness is notably better. Alas, too little too late for the big furrows. Nevertheless, I'm a fan.

As to hair? No scientific data on this claim (the no more bedhead thing). My hair is too fine and too thin to even think about standing up in a bedhead sort of way.
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1) Baek, JH, et al. Reduction of facial wrinkles depth by sleeping on copper oxide-containing pillowcases: a double blind, placebo controlled, parallel, randomized clinical study. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2012 Sep;11(3):193-200. doi: 10.1111/j.1473-2165.2012.00624.x.
2) Borkow, G, et al. Improvement of facial skin characteristics using copper oxide containing pillowcases: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel, randomized study. Int J Cosmet Sci. 2009 Dec;31(6):437-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2494.2009.00515.x. Epub 2009 May 20.

p.s. Available at Amazon as of 9/16/17 for $43.92; $55.00 at Nordstrom.  AmazonCopperCase