Hi Pooswa,
Health Care Foam* is a CertiPur certified Chinese supplier of polyfoam, memory foam, and gel foam. They make good quality foam IMO and much of what they are saying is correct … but there’s also more to the story.
ADMIN NOTE: *Removed 404 link|Archived Footprint: certipur.us/pages/for-industry/find-a-foam-supplier/hk-foam/
The actual quality of polyfoam or memory foam is based on what is called the polymer density (or unfilled density) as they mention and there are many Chinese suppliers that do exactly what they are suggesting (add fillers) which give their foams a “false density” and make it look better than it is. This is one of the reasons that it’s important to make sure that you are comparing apples to apples when you are comparing different materials.
They also make the foam for BedBoss, mLily, Easy Rest and others as well all of which tend to be better than average quality/value mattresses compared to most Chinese manufacturers but I would also read post #2 here and post #6 here so you are comfortable with some of the uncertainty involved with foams that are made in China. In most cases the manufacturers that use their foam will tell their customers the foam densities that they use in their mattresses.
So I think their point is valid but I also think that by not disclosing their foam densities at all instead of helping their customers compare CertiPur certified foams to other CertiPur certified foams they are doing themselves no favors because they are encouraging comparisons with “unknown” cheap foams or lower quality materials when in many cases they use higher quality materials. By not disclosing the information at all I think they put themselves in a worse position than if they do disclose it and then make people aware to compare their materials and mattresses to other CertiPur certified foams and not other “unknown” foams (especially Chinese foams) where there is no assurance at all that the density ratings are the unfilled polymer density.
He is also correct that memory foam has many different formulations and each of them (including different densities) can be very different in performance and that density alone shouldn’t determine what type of foam is used in a mattress. It is also true though that even with different types of memory foam that unfilled polymer density is the single most important (but not the only) factor in durability even between different manufacturers so if a lower density is used because it has properties that are more desirable for a particular application (such as more breathable 4 lb memory foam) then the consumer should at least be aware that there could be a durability tradeoff.
If the mattress manufacturers that use their foams can disclose the density of the foams they use … then I see no reason why they can’t as well for their own mattresses.
So assuming that we are talking about the same company … and also recognizing that they are making some valid points … I still don’t see any reason why they can’t disclose their foam specs for those who want to know them especially when mattress manufacturers that are using them are doing so.
By not doing so they are encouraging comparisons to “unknown”, poor quality, and “cheap” memory foams in a “race to the bottom”. IMO they need to identify why they are better … not eliminate good information completely from the discussion which only encourages the very type of comparisons they are hoping to avoid.
Phoenix