Four-Way Showdown: Brooklyn, Tuft & Needle, Kiss Mattress, and Love Bed

Hi everyone,

First post on this forum. Can I just say, the administrators here are absolutely BADA$$ in terms of responsiveness and helpfulness on the site. Like many others, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading here, and I feel much more prepared for the purchase. I’m like many consumers – I like to learn a lot about big purchases before making the jump, and mattress shopping (used to) feel like all the information available is ‘slanted’ in some way. Also, the fact that we have CEO’s of these simplified-choice companies joining the site and participating in forum discussions… pretty incredible. Leaves little doubt that these companies are really trying to change the ‘old ways’ of the mattress game.

Side note - feel free to move this post into another thread if it would be better elsewhere.

We are a married couple, both under 160 lbs, one back sleeper and one side sleeper. We’ve narrowed down to four:

[ul]
[li]Brooklyn Bedding (probably the front runner, but we’ve never tried latex mattresses)[/li]
[li]T&N (a definite upgrade from the cheaper memory foam we’ve had the last 6 yrs)[/li]
[li]Kiss (seems quality, but we know less about it)[/li]
[li]Love Bed (seems quality, but we know less about it)[/li]

[/ul]For Brooklyn - it seems like the price is great for what you’re getting. The biggest obstacle is that we don’t know if we’ll like latex after spending the last 6 years on memory foam. We’re planning to test out a latex mattress in a store locally before buying. We’re obviously protected by their return policy, but would MUCH rather just get it right the first time and avoid the hassle.

Question #1 - the “best mattress ever” seems like a new product without tons of history, but in reality, it’s a re-branded name of a similar product they used to sell. I’ve seen related posts on here, which is helpful, but couldn’t find one thing: was their former product an extremely well-regarded product? My guess is that the company just wanted to simplify the lineup, and kickstart some sales with better marketing. This mattress sounds great on paper, but there’s certainly a CHANCE that they’re trying to revive a product that sounds great on paper but isn’t really great in practice. The way to evidence that is to find good opinions of their former products, but I haven’t had as much luck.

For T&N - I think I’d love this one, but not as convinced for the lady, who sleeps on her side. With lower weight, I’m not sure the hips would sink enough to give the right alignment.

Question #2 - to my knowledge, there’s no such thing as a “half and half” firmness in the simplified choice category. The closest thing would be a Sleep Number bed, where you can adjust each side to your firmness liking (and track your sleep to make adjustments). I’m not as excited about Sleep Number, but please correct me if I should be looking harder at it.

For the Kiss - since there’s a transition layer of memory foam, in theory you have a “combination” of the latex feel and the memory foam feel.

Question #3 - would that potentially translate into a happy medium between back/neck support for the back sleeper, and enough “sinking” for the side sleeper?

For the Love Bed - these are very comparable mattresses in almost every way, except the Brooklyn is a bit cheaper and has a full inch more of premium foam. Both seem to have satisfactory return policies, service, etc.

Question #4 - other than the Love Bed having a more frontward-focus on its organic/certified materials (which is nice), what other reasons might there be to choose this over Brooklyn? Maybe I’m mistaken these being very similar, so it’s worth asking.

This forum is AWESOME! Thanks again to Phoenix and others for all you do.

Hi the_d_mann1,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum! :).

While I can’t make any specific suggestions or recommendations about “what” to choose (as you probably know from the tutorial) … hopefully I can help “pull” some of the most relevant links from the tutorial and provide some additional information that can help you with “how” to choose between some great options.

Just in case you haven’t read it yet in the tutorial there is more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a mattress compared to your other finalists (based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you).

The “value” of a mattress purchase really comes down to three independent but related factors …

1. Comfort and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences). This is all about how well you will sleep on a mattress.

This is the part I can’t help with because unless someone is a knowledgeable and experienced retailer or manufacturer that has a great deal of experience with helping to “match” their specific mattresses to different people … it’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for someone else either for which mattress, which particular combination of materials or firmness levels, or which type of mattress would work best for someone else.

The first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort” or PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) or how a mattress will “feel” to you based on specs (either yours or a mattress) or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or if you can’t test a mattress in person then your own personal sleeping experience after a purchase (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

When you can’t test a mattress in person then the most reliable source of guidance is always a more detailed conversation with a knowledgeable and experienced retailer or manufacturer that has your best interests at heart (which would include all of your options) who can help “talk you through” the specifics of their mattresses and the options they have available that may be the best “match” for you based on the information you provide them, any local testing you have done or mattresses you have slept well on and liked that they are familiar with, any special considerations you may have, and the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you. They will know more about helping you to “match” their specific mattress designs or firmness options to different body types, sleeping positions, and preferences or even to other mattresses that they are familiar with than anyone else so that in combination with your own personal testing you can make the “best possible” choice with the highest chance of success.

2. Durability and the useful life of a mattress.

There is more about the durability of each of these mattresses in post #2 of the simplified choice mattress topic here but this one is fairly simple because all of your finalists use good quality materials and there are no lower quality materials or weak links in any of them.

3. Meaningful comparisons between all your finalists based on #1 and #2 and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you. This would include prices and return or exchange options of course and it could also include which type of mattress you believe you would prefer based on the properties of the materials inside it because you can’t test this in person unless you are local to one of them. This would also include prices and the return/exchange policies but all of them have good prices relative to the materials inside them and all of them have a great return policy that would give you plenty of time to decide whether you liked the mattress and whether you sleep “well enough” on it to keep it.

Two of the mattresses you are considering use latex comfort layers with some polyfoam quilting (the BestMattressEver and the Love Bed), one of them uses a high performance polyfoam in the comfort layer (Tuft & Needle), and one uses a latex top layer combined with a high performance polyfoam layer underneath it that would have some of the properties of memory foam without the slower return and temperature sensitivity that is typical of most memory foams (the Kiss mattress). Since all of these are high quality and durable materials the type of material or combination of materials that would be “best for you” would be a preference choice rather than a “better/worse” choice so your choice between them would either be based on local testing on mattresses that contain similar materials or combinations of materials or your conversations with each of them where they can describe how their mattress may “feel” to you although this will also be fairly subjective and not everyone will describe the “feel” of the same mattress in the same way.

The BestMattressEver certainly isn’t a rebranded version of any of their previous mattresses and is a different mattress with a different design from any of the mattresses they have made previously (although it does have some specific materials in common with some of their previous mattresses). You can see some comments about the switch from their old lineup and the reasons behind it and a link on the wayback machine to their previous lineup in post #1027 here.

I would keep in mind that with any good quality mattress if you aren’t able to find a relatively large number of people that have had a specific mattress for at least 5 years or more and that ALSO identify their particular body type and sleeping style (which has a significant effect on durability) that online reviews really won’t tell you much if anything about the durability or useful life of a mattress that uses good quality materials (that should last you for 7 - 10 years or longer) that would be relative or meaningful to your own personal experience. If there are consistent durability issues that show up in reviews sooner than that then it would be because of lower quality and less durable materials in the mattress that would be relatively easy for any “informed consumer” to identify and avoid without needing to wait for 5 years or longer for reviews before making a purchase. Even if you are able to find enough long term reviews on a mattress that talk about durability over a period of years to identify a 5 year pattern, by the time they are written then it’s quite likely that the same mattress would no longer be available for sale anyway.

While other people’s comments about the knowledge, service, and guidance of a particular business can certainly be helpful … I would generally avoid using other people’s experiences or reviews on a mattress (either positive or negative) as a reliable source of information or guidance about how you will feel on the same mattress or how suitable or how durable a mattress may be for you and in many if not most cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that would be a perfect choice for one person or even a larger group of people may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (see post #13 here). The fact is that the only thing a mattress review will usually tell you is how one person likes a particular mattress which is usually based only on initial or early impressions that are very subjective and little else.

In terms of durability … a mattress is only as good as its construction and the quality and durability of the materials inside it (regardless of the name of the manufacturer or the mattress on the label) and the most reliable way to assess the durability and useful life of any mattress relative to any specific person (regardless of how long it has been available for sale) is to make sure you know the information listed in this article and then compare the specifications to the quality/durability guidelines in post #4 here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in the mattress that could have a significant effect on the durability and useful life of a mattress relative to your body type, sleeping style, or circumstances.

Again … while a conversation with Tuft & Needle will certainly be helpful … the only way to know this with any certainty will be based on your actual sleeping experience.

You can see my thoughts about airbeds in general this article. While any mattress can be a good match for a specific person because each person’s needs and preferences or the criteria that are most important to them can be very different … in general terms I would tend to avoid them unless there is a very compelling reason that an airbed would be a better choice for you in “real life” (outside of the many “marketing stories” that you will hear about them) than the many other options or types of mattresses that are available to you.

While none of the “simplified choice” mattresses have a split firmness options available to my knowledge … the tutorial post includes a link to a list of the members here that sell mattresses online and many of these sell component latex or latex hybrid options that have split firmness options available in the larger sizes (either queen and king or in some cases just king size). There is also more information in the first part of post #2 here about some of the different ways that can be used to accommodate a couple that have very different body types or different needs and preferences in a mattress and there is also more information about the pros and cons of split firmness mattresses in post #2 here.

Yes … the Kiss mattress would have some of the more resilient “surface feel” of the talalay latex top layer combined with some of the slower response and less resilient “memory foam like” feel of the high performance hybrid polyfoam layer underneath it.

Again … there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved to be able to predict how any mattress will feel or perform for someone else based on specs (either yours or a mattress) or “theory at a distance” and the only way to know for certain whether any mattress will be a good “match” for you in terms of comfort and PPP will be based on your own careful testing or your actual sleeping experience and if you can’t test a mattress in person then the most reliable source of guidance will always be a more detailed conversation with the retailer or manufacturer.

The materials in the Love Bed are “somewhat similar” except they use a single layer of convoluted synthetic latex instead of two latex layers and the quilting and cover is different) and the 3 firmness levels they have available would also be “similar” but the only way to know which of them would be the best “match” for you in terms of comfort and PPP will be based on your actual sleeping experience because they have a different design so they would each have a different “feel” and response. As you mentioned both of them (and the others as well) have great return policies that would give you plenty of time to decide whether the mattress is a good “match” for you and how well you will sleep on it over the longer term.

None of the mattresses you are considering are either natural or organic and all of them use certified materials and components that are “safe” so this wouldn’t be a meaningful issue in deciding between them. The most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase and the most important reasons to choose one mattress over another are in the quality/value guidelines I linked and in the other links in the rest of this reply.

Once you are confident that all your finalists would be a good match for both of you in terms of PPP (or you have good exchange/return options after a purchase if you aren’t) and that there are no weak links in any of them in terms of durability (which there aren’t) then you would be down to finalists that are comparing “good to good”. If there are no clear winners between them at this point (which is usually a good indication that you have done some very good research) then you are in the fortunate position that any of them would likely make a good quality/value choice and post #2 here can help you make a final choice based on any local testing or mattresses you have slept well on in the past, your more detailed conversations with each of them, your confidence about PPP and the suitability of each one, their prices, your preferences, the options you have after a purchase to fine tune the mattress or exchange or return the mattress or individual layers and any cost involved, any additional extras that are part of each purchase, and on “informed best judgement” based on all the other objective, subjective, and intangible parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you. Sometimes your final choice may even come down to some fairly small differences that are just a matter of “gut feel” or “educated best judgement”.

Phoenix

Phoenix - thank you for an amazing reply! I don’t know what else to say, other than… you answered all of my questions with great information. We’ll let it soak in, and will make a decision soon. Our experiences chatting with these new breeds of mattress companies has been terrific so far. Thanks again!

Hi the_d_mann1,

I’m looking forward to finding out what you end up deciding.

Phoenix

Hi Phoenix,

Quick question - when ordering from Tuft & Needle, how do you activate the 6.5% discount? [EDIT] I just read your sticky on the General Mattresses forum and that clarified everything for me. THANKS !!

Either way, I’ve been lurking on this forum for the past few days gathering information. I’m currently torn between a Tuft & Needle Mattress and a relatively new mattress on Amazon for $349 : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0134F5QWY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A32J5SJQH6Y89J

I’m emailing the company on Amazon for product spec’s but I’m inclined to buy the Tuft & Needle due to the 100 day guarantee.

Hi m12w,

All you need to do is call or email them after a purchase to let them know you are a member of the forum here and they will credit the discount to the card that you used for the purchase within a few days.

Based on their shipping weight and on the price … I would be very skeptical about the description that says they are using 5.5 lb memory foam and as you mentioned they don’t list the density of their base layer. In addition to this I would be very cautious about buying any mattress from an unknown and completely new vendor or a vendor that doesn’t have a phone number or an address or any “real world” presence where you can contact them.

If you do decide to go in this direction in spite of the risks I would also make sure that you find out and are comfortable with their return/exchange policy as well.

Phoenix