midnight miracles; With head-to-toe treatments that promise to multitask by moonlight, Ying Chu discovers the ultimate reason to sleep soundly.

Byline: Ying Chu

Hermes's bedside water carafes have been out of stock across the country. Christian Louboutin is selling cashmere slippers alongside stilettos in his Paris and New York ateliers. Frette's linen sheets run $2,400 a set, and when you stay at a Four Seasons, if you like the bed you slept in, you can buy it. At the Paris collections, Viktor & Rolf paid homage to Sleeping Beauty, sending models Lily Cole, Karen Elson, and Hana Soukupova down their fall runway dressed in charmeuse quilted duvet coats with eyelet lace pillows strapped to the backs of their heads. Not only has it never been chicer to be well rested, but now-backed by supercharged ingredients and cutting-edge science-beauty sleep is taking on a whole new meaning.

While You Were Sleeping

Though it's tempting to dismiss the wellspring of expensive night creams and serums as creative marketing, science has shown that skin is in fact more receptive to treatment while the body is at rest. When not expending energy fending off environmental aggressors-sun, wind, pollution-skin enters its ideal repair state. "Studies have shown that wounds heal faster while you sleep," says Manhattan dermatologist Dennis Gross, M.D. "Your body ultimately goes into recovery. You are indoors and it's dark. Your cells are not in overdrive producing antioxidants to fight free radicals. Instead, they are producing collagen and repairing DNA. Any topical active ingredient with repair benefits becomes more efficient."

The people at DDF found a way to take advantage of skin's downtime by fortifying their new $1,000 breakthrough product, RMX Maximum, with growth-factor proteins. The formula-which comes in 28 individual pre-bedtime vials and must be kept frozen until used-promises to help increase the skin's metabolic activity, thus encouraging collagen and elastin production, which translates to fewer wrinkles and firmer skin.

Rhythm of the Night

In a recent study focusing on facial skin and circadian rhythms (the body clock which controls sleep and wakefulness cycles, plus functions including blood pressure, oil release, and hormone secretion), the French independent research lab C.E.R.I.E.S. found that skin loses moisture at night-between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 a.m., to be precise-which makes it not only in need of extra hydration but also more receptive to absorbing ingredients. "At around one o'clock in the morning, there is an increase in the temperature of the skin, which leads to an increase of top epidermal water loss that is perspiration," says Daniel Maes, Ph.D., the global vice president of research and development at