He said, She said.... I need a neutral party to weigh in.

[phoenix]

Hi nap101,

The zoning thing confuses me a bit because it sounds different than what you say in your post.
Here is a direct quote from the nest bedding site regarding zoning in their mattresses:
These correspond with the shape of your body, bigger holes in the shoulder and hip are, smaller holes in the lumbar and lighter parts of your body. This allows the latex to support the curves of your body and give you proper support. Regular latex is flat and doesn’t give to the curves of your body.

There are many different zoning patterns that you will find with different latex cores but you can see a picture here of a typical 7 zoned Mountaintop layer and it is firmer under the hips and softer under the shoulders. Bigger holes or more closely spaced holes or “pincores” would be the softer areas and the smaller or more closely spaced pincores would be the firmer areas. I don’t know the specific zoning pattern of their organic Dunlop but it would also typically be firmer under the hips/pelvis and softer under the shoulders. All latex is very point elastic so it will contour to the curves of your body whether it is zoned or not.

There is more about zoning in this article and in post #11 here and post #2 here but your testing will tell you more than anything else whether any zoning pattern is a suitable “match” for you in terms of PPP.

I do like the feel of the mattress in the store, as my hips are a bit bigger than the rest of me, but is this something the mattress would do naturally over time? Is this a concern 10 years from now in that what feels great in the store would cause that part of the mattress to sink in even more to the point of being uncomfortable? Also, all the layers have the zone system. Not just one. And upon visiting the store the zoned holes are different on each side so if it is too soft or too hard you can flip that layer over.

I would make sure that you test for more than just the “showroom feel” of a mattress. The tutorial post has some guidelines that can help you test a mattress for Pressure relief and alignment. While all materials will soften over time … latex is the most durable of all the foam materials and will soften and break down less and more slowly than other types of foam materials (such as polyfoam or memory foam). There is more about the many variables that can affect durability and the useful life of a mattress relative to each person in post #2 here and the posts it links to but overall durability isn’t something that I would be particularly concerned about with any latex mattress that is a good match for you in terms of PPP as long as it isn’t on the edge of being too soft for you (see post #2 here).

A Dunlop latex core can be softer or firmer on each side but it’s very unlikely that the zoning would be different on each side unless there are two layers glued together.

Phoenix