Hawaii Mattress Research Dump

Hello all. I found this site while doing research about good quality/value mattresses. I’m recently married and one of the first big purchases my wife and I are going to make is a new mattress. When we’re at her place, which is most of the week, we sleep on a twin size innerspring ( yes, a twin) that is probably closer to 20 years old.

Reading through the site and visiting various retailers, I noticed that myself and others have some unique challenges associated with living in Hawaii. Some of these challenges include:

  1. a lack of selection
  2. few if any local manufacturers
  3. high shipping costs and the inability to test mattresses from online retailers.
    In an attempt to help out fellow Hawaii mattress shoppers, I thought I would post some of the info I’ve gathered and some of my thoughts as I continue to search for the right mattress.

All my research was done on October 2016 on Oahu.
First of all is the problem of selection. You don’t have to look hard on this site to know that the ‘S’ brands (serta, sealy, simmons) are lower quality for the price and have little transparency in terms of build materials.
I started my search by going to the usual large store retailers such as Macy’s and Sears. I’ve been to the Macy’s in Pearlridge, Ala Moana, and Kanoehe. With the exception of the Kaneohe one (which had no mattresses on display) Macy’s only had mattresses from the ‘S’ brands. I found the ‘S’ brands at every store I checked with the exception of one which i’ll go into later. Just checked the Ala Moana store last night and they only had Beautyrest mattresses. I only checked the Sears in Kaneohe, but it wasn’t any better in terms of selection. There were the usual suspects, but they also had a couple of Stearns & Foster mattresses, which I found is owned by Sealy.

I went to the Sleeptrain store in Waimalu and it was more of the same ‘S’ brands.
Slumberworld seemed to have the widest selection of different brands. I checked out the one by Pearlridge and the one on Beretania. Up till now, I hadn’t come across any latex mattresses. Slumberworld of course had the ‘S’ brands, but also carried a number of latex mattresses. They had 3 mattresses by Aireloom that had a varying number and firmness of latex comfort layers with foam cores. Depending on the model, they ranged in price from the mid $2000 to high $3000 for a full size.
They had their in-house brand called Island Dreams which were hybrid latex and innerspring. I read elsewhere on this site that the Island Dreams are just a rebranding of another manufacturer. One we looked at called the Waialae was around $1500. I asked for some information on build material and layers. I took a picture of it that i’ll try to post, but there wasn’t anything on foam densities or latex types.
Slumberworld also had a number of Organicpedic beds by OMI. These were all latex mattresses with prices to match with the starting 6" model at around $3000.

The last place I went to was Wholesale Mattress on Waiakamilo. They only carried one brand, Leader Mattress. The prices on these were very cheap ranging from $300 to a little over $1000. I think all were innerspring with one or two being memory foam. My research turned up little about the brand in terms of build quality and materials. Maybe someone could help me out as the prices were pretty tempting. Another thing of interest is that all sales are final (i’ll get into that later).

Second is the lack of local manufacturers that could present an alternative value/quality option. The only one i’ve come across is the Green Bed Company which reuses foam and other materials from used mattresses. I did not visit this store as purchasing a recycled bed was not an option I was going to entertain. Bed Bug sightings have not been uncommon in Hawaii recently with certain hotels and resorts being prime suspects. While i’m sure there is a sanitation process that all the used beds go through, I would assume that the company gets most of their materials from the hospitality industry and that just isn’t a chance i’m going to take. This may be anecdotal, but I talked to the delivery guy at Wholesale Mattress and he said that they don’t take returns because of the chance of bed bugs which he has seen at places they do deliveries.

After trying one of the latex Aireloom mattresses and seeing prices that were out of my range, I decided to look up some online retailers. Living in Hawaii, high shipping prices are nothing new to me. I got in contact with 3 different sites that ship full latex mattresses to see what kind of shipping prices i’m looking at.
The first was dreamfoambedding.com. They quoted me a shipping price of $150 for any size of the Ultimate Dreams Total Latex model which was not bad considering some of the other quotes I got. If I wanted to return it, they would have me donate the mattress to a local charity and after I sent them the donation receipt, they would refund me, minus shipping of course. Another thing is the fee to exchange the topper would be $200 not including shipping.
The second place I looked up is sleepez.com. They ship their mattresses in multiple cardboard boxes and I was quoted a price of $99 per box with a 9" or 10" full or queen mattress coming in 3 boxes.
The third place was sleeponlatex.com. They did shipping by weight so shipping prices would change on what size and firmness you got. They quoted me $294 for a 9" firm queen and $252 for a 9" firm full.

Currently, i’m still in the researching phase of purchasing a mattress while leaning toward a full latex mattress from an online retailer. I hope some of this info can help people out and maybe someone can help me make a better decision with some of the research they have done. I’ll try to update if I come across anything relevant.

Hi Xando:

Thank you for taking the time to do provide such useful information to the site. I really appreciate it!

You are correct that it is a challenge for people in Hawaii to find a decent quality mattress, and many do order products from the “mainland.” Higher shipping fees are unfortunately a way of life in Hawaii, but one that I know you are used to. The tradeoff for the location seems to be worth it. 

You’ve probably already seen it, but just in case, here is some other information I have about Hawaii mattress shopping:

The better options or possibilities I’m aware of in the Hawaiian islands are listed in post #269 here. The better options or possibilities I’m aware of in the Hawaiian islands are listed in post #269 here. There are also some topics that include some discussions and feedback with various forum members in Hawaii
here and
here and
here and
here and
here and
here that may also be helpful.

It seems that you’ve already done a fair amount of reading form the site, and I appreciate that. You are correct about the “S” brands, and you are also correct about Stearns & Foster being part of Sealy (they have been for quite some time). While Stearns has recently gone to a better Quantum Edge innerspring unit, their foams are still below a level of quality that I would recommend.

While latex is certainly a durable product, I’d take some time to make a personal value equation about the Aireloom product. It’s unlikely that you will be able to find out the type and quality of all the layers and components in an Aireloom mattress at any retailer that carries them (see this article) which means that it generally isn’t worth the time to even test them (see this article) and I would avoid them (along with any mattress where you aren’t able to find out the specifics of what’s inside them).

While OMI certainly uses higher quality materials, they are also in much higher budget ranges (as you mentioned) than many other manufacturers that use the same materials in their mattresses (including organic latex, organic wool and organic cotton) so I would normally suggest making some very careful value comparisons based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are important to you so that you are satisfied that there is enough of a difference in “real life” to justify the higher cost compared to other mattresses that use the same amount of the same type and blend of latex and have a similar wool quilted cover that are in lower budget ranges that may be just as comfortable and just as suitable in terms of PPP and would be just as durable.

Yes, I would second your opinion of avoiding this type of option. It escapes me at the moment, but there was a television piece years ago that showed a company in California treating used mattresses according to State specifications for resale. And after all of that treatment, the items still tested positive for many contaminants.

This is common in many areas of the country, and some municipalities have begun to specify that used materials may not be transported on the same delivery trucks as new items, or that they at least must be wrapped before being on the same truck.

The online option is common for many people in Hawaii, and the shipping quotes you mentioned seem reasonable for what you’re getting. As you’re already aware, Dream Foam Bedding, SleepEZ and Sleep On Latex are all members here which means that I think very highly of them and that I believe they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, knowledge, service, and transparency.

I really look forward to any other information you provide as you go through your search. Your post was extremely informative and can be useful to many others.

Thank you. :slight_smile:

Phoenix