The quick answer to this is no. While they have similar names and jobs, mattress protectors and mattress toppers are completely different. Mattress protectors are a thin layer that shield your mattress, whereas a topper is designed to change the feel of your sleep surface by adding a thick layer to your mattress for extra comfort. As toppers are a lot thicker than protectors, most of them won’t even fit in a washing machine, so you’ll have to clean a topper similar to how you would clean a mattress.