I Spent a Week Taking a "Sleeping Beauty Pill" Before Bed and This Is What Happened

Sleeping pills are not something I've ever needed. I can fall into a slumber anywhere, anytime—even on command if you *really* needed me to. However, as I've grown older and "matured" I've come to understand the fruits of beauty sleep (opens in new tab). I'll do anything to ensure that the little sleep I do get is optimizing my, how shall we say, ability to look alive the next morning? So while I'm already a proprietor of the silk pillow case, when I saw Hum Nutrition's Beauty zzZz pills were sold out on Sephora (opens in new tab), they were as good as added to my bag. Except I had to go to Urban Outfitters' website to get them.

When they arrived, I was immediately obsessed with the fact that this royal blue bottle would be on my nightstand. It was very pretty, but not in a try-hard way. However, when I actually got around to reading the label, it became apparent that it was just glorified melatonin. But hey, it was something I'd never tried before. So for a week, I did as instructed and took one tablet 20 minutes before bedtime with water, ensuring never to eat anything afterwards much to the disappointment of my late night addiction to Brookside Dark Chocolate Crunchy Clusters. You've been warned. Here was my takeaway:

1. They taste like any old vitamins. Sadly this is not a Flinstone Multivitamin for Kids situation. These vegetarian tablets are no more appetizing than store brand chewables. It would have been a nice bonus, but definitely not a deal breaker.

2. There's a "nightcap without the hangover" effect. Beauty zzZz promises such and I'd say that's pretty accurate...at least for the first few nights. It's not so much that I just slumped over immediately after popping one of the pills, but it was harder to stay awake—even when it was Bloodline on Netflix. And come morning when my alarm rang, it wasn't any harder to get out of bed.

3. I woke up less through the night. I don't wake up that much during the night generally as I'm a deep sleeper, so it wasn't a night and day difference per se. But I was too nervous to rely on my body as a natural alarm clock (which I so often do) because I was just a little too 'laxed. So there's that.

4. I felt (and looked?) better the next day. For one, adding this necessary step to my routine made me feel more measured when I went to sleep... kind of like when I take my makeup off and moisturize properly. I feel more in control of my grown-ass-women-ness as opposed to when I just PTFO. As for my looks, I do feel like I looked slightly more refreshed, a little less dull and puffy. But not to the point where I'd take these supplements going forward. However, this could totally be a symptom of the fact that I never have a problem sleeping anyways, so this might be just the trick for someone else. At only $10, they're worth a try. But either way...

Hum Nutrition's Beauty zzZz pills, $10; urbanoutfitters.com (opens in new tab).

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