Anyone who has ever tried a sleep mask has struggled with the dreaded ‘nose light’. You put the mask on, expect darkness, but find the bridge of your nose bending the fabric juuuust enough to let light leak in. Suddenly, it’s as if you’re facing a spotlight. Sleep is impossible. You wrap your head in pillows and curse the sun.
But maybe there’s something better?
Today, we’re looking at the Dozy™, a new premium sleep mask that’s designed with a blackout seal, guaranteeing a light-locking fit regardless of your face shape or head size. We’re test running the Dozy™ for a week of sleeps to see how it compares to traditional sleep masks.
THE BLACKOUT SEAL:
Removing the mask from the included carry bag, the first thing I notice is the two eye ‘cups’. Padded doughnuts made of a soft, flexible memory cotton material. These form the heart of the Dozy’s ‘blackout seal’. The eye cups frame around the eyes, sealing out the light in a manner that flexibly conforms to your face. In contrast to a traditional mask, the masks’s nose bridge is separate to the eye seals, meaning the effectiveness of the mask is unaffected by the size or shape of your nose.
To correctly fit the seal, place the mask over your eyes and secure the Velcro strap. Pinch the interior of the eye cups as if you’re pinching your nose and any leaks should disappear. Different to ordinary masks, your eyes are given a lot of breathing room. The seal fits around the socket, keeping your eyes and eyelashes free of pressure. You can open them up fully to appreciate just how dark it is inside the mask. (Some people even like to draw or meditate with the mask on and their eyes open!)
Like everything else on the Dozy™, these eye cups are adjustable. They’re held in place with Velcro, which can be removed and re-attached further or closer along to suit your face type. This is particularly good for individuals with smaller or larger heads, as it allows them to adjust the actual light blocking part of the mask for optimum usage. While most sleep masks are ‘one size fits all’, the Dozy™ instead pursues a philosophy of ‘all sizes in one’, allowing the user to adjust everything to their liking.
First Impressions
For the trial, I wore the Dozy™ for a week every night to see how it affected my ability to initiate and maintain sleep. Living in a dense urban area, I get a lot of light pollution from streetlights seeping through my windows. I designed two separate tests: first, whether it would block out my partner’s bedside table light. The second, whether it would keep blocking the streetlights even if I rolled or shifted during the night.
To the first test, before starting I adjusted the cups slightly to best suit my face shape. Placing the mask over my eyes, I pinched the bridge of the mask and found the seal worked almost immediately. Wearing the mask, even with all the lights on in my bedroom, was indistinguishable from pitch darkness. A pretty good start, but can it handle a tumbling sleeper?
I fit the Velcro strap lightly but firmly around the back of my head. It left very little pressure on my skull while the eye cups did a good job of staying in place. Waking up the next morning (and for the rest of the week), I found the mask secure and unmoved. Even the sun was unable to penetrate the mask’s exterior, it’s a real shock waking to realise how bright the room is behind the Dozy!
NO YANKS OR TUGS - COMFORT:
Of course, in the era of COVID, we’re now all familiar with the painful tug of elastic on our ears. After a day of wearing a mask at work, your ears are red and tender — the last thing you want to do is have more tight elastic tugging at your head. The Dozy™ mask is designed with an adjustable velcro strap, it sits lightly but securely on the back of your skull.
As mentioned in my review, it’s not hooking around your ears or placing undue pressure on them. You can secure it higher around your head if you’d like. In addition, because of the soft and padded memory cotton that forms the majority of the eye cups, your face is kept comfortable. They have a similar texture to a medium pillow and squash down if you roll onto your face. This makes them appropriate for front and side sleepers.
Portability:
The Dozy™ is an everyday sleep solution, but also optimised for travelers and shift workers. The drawstring carry bag helps keep your mask clean and secure during a commute, it’s appropriate for taking with you on flights or weekend trips and, because everything is flexible, it compresses nicely in a bag. For shift workers, it’s a good alternative to taping up the curtains: the material is thick enough to block even direct sunlight, making it a life saver for resting during the day.
In these louder contexts, the Dozy™ can be paired with earplugs to block out external noise. It comes with three complementary pairs of the Earjobs ComfyWax, which is rated at an SNR 23 -- blocking out about 23 decibels of noise while remaining soft in your ears.
Conclusion:
Balancing the right combination of night-to-night utility while also being soft and sensuous, the Dozy™ makes for a good gift for anyone who prizes their sleep. Better still, it’s priced competitively: cheaper than competitors whose masks are less capable of providing a unique, light-sealing fit.
The mask thrives as a personalised alternative to expensive blackout curtains, not to mention it’s a relationship saver if you’re dating a night owl. No longer should the dreaded bedside table lamp keep you up. The Dozy™ brings the night to you anywhere.
The Dozy™ 3D Sleep Mask is currently available for the special launch price of just $29.99 here at Earjobs.