Wide awake couple helping people sleep

Wide awake couple helping people sleep

Peace pillow designers Steve and Elaine Bennett are finding their life anything but restful.

Four years ago they packed their bags and left London for Auckland hoping for a better lifestyle for themselves and their children.

Steve, a former television cameraman, says they found it. The lifestyle is fantastic and the children are thriving.

But he and Elaine have hardly had time to sit still.

Take the recent Home Show in Auckland. The couple decided they would sell their Peace pillows there. They were right – three figure sales were worth the days spent on their feet talking to hundreds of people who suffer from poor sleep.

New Zealand, they say, is a country where you can put your entrepreneurial skills into action and people appreciate it.

The couple found their latest idea under their noses. Elaine, a practising osteopath and acupuncturist based at Albany in North Shore, felt unable to recommend a pillow to her clients that would give them relief from pain. She set about designing her own, utilising techniques she had devised over the years to help her patients.

Next the couple had to find the right materials and put hours of research into space age memory foam technology.

Steve then found a local company that would not only mould heat sensitive visco elastic memory foam, but during the process scent it with natural lavender and Healthguard, an anti fungal and antibacterial treatment. The lavender aids relaxation and Healthguard helps keep the pillow free from antigens that can trigger attacks of asthma, rhinitis or sinusitis.

Finally they added a quilted cover, manufactured by an Auckland company.

“People at the Home Show told us they had bought heaps of pillows, but never found one they were really happy with,” Steve says. “We have also been selling the Peace pillows through chiropractors and physiotherapists.”

The unique contour design, available in soft, medium and firm, seems to have struck a chord with consumers. Steve and Elaine’s attempt to have a more restful life will just have to go on hold a bit longer.

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