Help choosing a new mattress

[phoenix]

Hi KayaO,

After writing out my top 5 list and vetting with the hubby, we decided that the best two value mattresses for us were the Foam Sweet Foam Urban Green, which is a completely customizable all-latex mattress, and the PlushBeds Heavenly Plush which is foam over latex over foam. I’ve attached my comparison list if anyone is interested (sorry the writing may be a bit small). We wound up opting for the PlushBeds mattress because they make it no risk to try it and we were a bit hesitant to jump straight into an all latex mattress without first being able to try anything all-latex in person… Foam Sweet Foam has an 18% restocking fee which seemed risky. After speaking with John at PlushBeds, the final purchase was actually the Cool Bliss gel foam mattress since I did find my hips sank too far in the softest foam mattresses we could try locally and I also occasionally wake up hot at night. The best thing is, I totally forgot we have a vacation coming up in the Toronto area and there are 3 mattress stores within 5 mi of where we’ll be staying that have all-latex mattresses! We plan on trying these while we’re there and who knows… we may wind up liking them much better. If we do, we can return the PlushBeds and get the Foam Sweet Foam without losing anything

As you probably know from your reading here … the two mattresses you were comparing are very much apples to oranges comparisons. The Plushbeds Heavenly Plush is primarily a memory foam mattress (with a latex transition layer) and the FSF Urban Green mattresses are all latex component mattresses. There is more about the pros and cons of latex vs memory foam in post #2 here.

Having said that … the type of materials or mattresses that different people tend to prefer can vary widely and some people prefer sleeping on memory foam and other people prefer sleeping on latex. The Plushbeds uses 4 lb memory foam which would certainly be suitable for your weight range in terms of durability and all the other layers are all high quality latex and polyfoam materials so there are no lower quality materials or weak links in the mattress. If your mattress turns out to be a good “match” for you in terms of PPP then it would certainly make a good quality/value choice.

Denver Mattress (owned by Furniture Row) in Tulsa: This store was really nice. It’s large with a good selection of brands and also their own Choice brand. They have memory foam, pocket coil, air, and latex in pretty much every combination. This is the only store I found in the area that has an all latex mattress. I was not a fan of the current model which was too firm without the 3" talaylay topper and too soft with it. However, I was informed that within the next month they have a new line coming out that’s all-latex so there will probably be more selection soon! The sales guy was also friendly and knowledgeable and showed us around for about an hour with no pressure to buy.

Their current iChoice HeveaPUR is a “mostly latex” mattress that uses 4" of polyfoam in the design. The latex in the topper is very soft so it certainly wouldn’t be suitable for everyone. They make some good quality/value mattresses although I would avoid the Green Choice mattresses they sell which are made in China and use low quality memory foam that would be a weak link in the mattress. Thanks for the heads up about the new latex mattress that is coming … I’ll keep an eye out for it.

[quote]Snow’s Mattress in Tulsa: I’m kind of surprised this one wasn’t on your list. They are a little smaller but have a good selection of major brands and also carry some smaller licesees like Eclipse and Eastland (both Sleep Designs brands). I would say this is a decent mid-range quality/value store. The sales guy was very helpful within his limits but didn’t know much about the construction of the mattresses. Unfortunately Sleep Designs out of Houston seems to either be very tight lipped in their construction or their reps are pretty clueless. Out of two contacts I got at the local manufacturer the best specs I could wheedle out of them are below:

Eclipse Calla Plush
Polyester cover
Quilting foam and FR layer
2" Convoluted memory foam
8" 660 pocket coil with 5 zone support
$795

My husband and I found this mattress very comfortable however after getting all the great info out of this forum we just didn’t feel like that was enough info to make a quality decision if it would be right for us in the long run.[/quote]

One of the most important criteria for inclusion on the forum lists is that there is a good chance that a consumer can find out the specifics of the materials in the mattresses they sell. While the Sleep Designs mattresses they carry would be “possibilities” and when I talked with the owner of Sleep Designs he certainly appeared to be transparent about the mattresses they make … when I talked with Snow’s Mattress on the phone they didn’t impress me at all with their knowledge or willingness to provide meaningful information about their mattresses which is why I left them off the list. Buying a mattress where you aren’t able to find out the type and quality/density of the materials inside it or dealing with retailers or manufacturers that aren’t able or willing to provide the information you would need to make an informed choice it is much too risky.

The specs that they gave you don’t include the information you would need to make any meaningful assessment about its durability or whether there are any weak links in the mattress (see this article) and with 2" of unknown density (and probably lower density) polyfoam I definitely would avoid it.

Cooper Herrington Furniture in Bartlesville: This is a local mom&pop shop (or rather a mom&son shop in this case). They only carry Restonic mattresses which are manufactured in Haven KS. This is a very small store so there was not a lot of selection. They primarily carry innerspring mattresses with two all-foam choices and one pocket coil/talaylay hybrid. The owner was not very helpful and didn’t know anything about the mattresses. She mostly tried to push her preferences on us and discouraged us against the only mattress I was interested in (the talaylay hybrid) because apparently the latex sinks into the pocket coils and makes dips which seems pretty weird. The son really didn’t like when I started asking questions and also had no idea what was in the mattresses. He did finally offer to call Restonic who (second hand) was very transparent and gave the full specs of the mattress including the ILDs. The asking price for this mattress was pretty high considering similar constructions online with all natural materials go for much less. Overall I would say this store is another mid-range one and it’s unfortunate the owner only gets in mattresses she likes so there isn’t much variety.

Thanks for your comments here as well and i’ve added a link to your post in their description.

Meek’s Sleep Shop: This is another mom&pop shop just north of Tulsa that only sells Corsicana mattresses. I did not personally try this brand. They have inner spring, pocket coil, memory foam, and hybrids. I’m guessing this is another mid-range brand similar to Eclipse. Might be worth adding to the list…

A store that only carries Corsicana mattresses would automatically exclude them from any of the forum lists. They tend to use lower quality materials and they also aren’t transparent about the quality/density of the materials they use in their mattresses. There are usually carried by stores that are looking for relatively “cheap” mattresses.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences and most importantly … congratulations on your new mattress

I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback when you receive it and have had the chance to sleep on it for a bit.

Phoenix