A Columbus native intends to revolutionize how we sleep. Her plan? To reinvent the sleep mask.
Jill MacRae cofounded the Inactive Company, a business dedicated to helping customers improve their sleep quality. Their latest product, Inactivators, is a high-tech sleep mask that helps create an “optimal” sleeping environment: completely dark, comfortable and cool.
Inactivators have been used by college and pro football teams, including Georgia, Auburn, Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants, Business Wire reported.
About Jill MacRae and the start of the Inactive Company
MacRae moved to Columbus when she was 4 years old from Miami, Florida. She found her love of wellness from her dad, who was a trauma surgeon.
“I always knew that [wellness] was a priority,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer, “but it wasn’t my focus until later in life.”
MacRae graduated from Hardaway High School and earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Georgia.
MacRae had a decorated career spanning over 25 years in sales and marketing at major brands such as Spanx, Dunkin’ Brands and Starbucks. While working at Spanx, she met her future Inactive cofounder, Lori Oliver.
“We were traveling around the world and making all sorts of products, and we were always complaining about sleep,” MacRae said. “We can never get enough sleep.”
MacRae said they tried many other methods to improve their sleep: gummies, vitamins, mattresses and pillows. Nothing worked.
“Lori called me one day and said, ‘I’ve got it. I got the solution to sleep better we’ve always been talking about,’” MacRae said. “‘I want to re-engineer a 100-year-old product, just like Sara [Blakely] did for Spanx with the girdle. I want to do it for a sleep mask.’”
Oliver brought in MacRae to help build the company in 2019. MacRae said the Inactivators took about a year and a half to perfect.
“We’re not doctors, and we’re not sleep experts, but we knew from being consumers,” MacRae said. “We knew what worked and what didn’t work. So validating with partners like the Emory sleep study clinic as well as the Harvard Sleep Symposium on what the criteria your body needs to fall and stay asleep, and translating that into tangible features in a mask, was probably the hardest thing.”
How the Inactivators sleep mask revolutionizes sleep quality
Since putting them on the market, the Inactivators have “taken off like wildfire,” MacRae said. The Inactivators have been popular among professional athletes, especially players who normally don’t like wearable technology like Apple Watches or Fitbits.
“[The NFL Players Association] has been great partners in giving us feedback on how they are using not just the sleep mask but also in helping to create sleep culture for these young athletes, these young men, who are high performers and need to stay healthy,” MacRae said.
The Inactivators have a few main features. First, the mask provides 100% darkness and blackout, which studies say helps the brain release melatonin, a vital hormone that helps with the sleep-wake cycle. The mask also has a temperature-regulating material that helps absorb heat that rises and falls with the circadian rhythm. MacRae said feedback from consumer testing showed that the Inactivators’ temperature control technology helps customers sleep 20-30 minutes longer on average.
The Inactivators also have enough space for users to open their eyes under their mask.
“We found that in working with Emory University’s Veterans Program, the Wounded Warriors program, we learned that a lot of people won’t wear a sleep mask because they’re afraid,” MacRae said. “They’re afraid they’re going to wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to open their eyes. The pressure from a lot of the sleep masks that are already on the market frightens some people.”
The Inactivators cost $45, according to their website.
The Inactive Company is expanding its product line to include pajamas and other products, MacRae said.