Help figuring out durability of R&S Mattress sold Brooklyn Bedding for my Personal Value Equation?

[phoenix]

Hi phuff,

So, the Mrs. likes to sleep on her stomach, but ends up on her side a lot of the time, and I’m a back predominant, but also I often end up as a side sleeper. Neither of us is super big, both of us are 5"7 and 155 lbs + 180 lbs.

They didn’t know the specs on the Mallory that they sell in store but I called back and they told me it’s 28 ILD Talalay latex on the top layer, and then a 1" layer of HD foam and then the coils. So while the Mallory didn’t necessarily feel significantly stiffer to us than the 19 ILD apparently it was a couple of notches higher up their firmness scale.

The “quality specs” of a mattress are important to know so you can assess the durability and useful life of a mattress and make meaningful comparisons to other mattresses (see post #4 here) but the “comfort specs” of a mattress such as ILD aren’t important at all because with a local purchase, careful and objective testing using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post will tell you much more about whether a mattress is suitable for you in terms of PPP than a comfort specs such as ILD which is only one of many specs that contribute to the feel and performance of a mattress and really don’t mean much in “real life” for most people that don’t have extensive experience in the industry (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

Another question I have is how soft the softening of the latex gets; I’ve seen mentioned in a few places here that in the lower ILDs latex tends to have lower durability; does that mean that a 19 ILD will get softer than a 28 ILD latex layer?

There is more about the factors that can affect the durability of a mattress in the post I linked in my last reply and the other posts it links to but softness is certainly a durability factor in any foam material (because you will compress softer materials more than firmer materials). While softer foams are less durable than firmer foams of the same type … latex is the most durable type of foam in general and will maintain it’s original properties longer than other types of foam that are in the same softness range.

Another question I have is how soft the softening of the latex gets; I’ve seen mentioned in a few places here that in the lower ILDs latex tends to have lower durability; does that mean that a 19 ILD will get softer than a 28 ILD latex layer? i.e. after the break-in the 19 will end up as a perceived 14 where as a 28 might end up as a percieved 26? Also, do the softer ILDs of latex end up softening quicker than the firmer ones? i.e. the 19 ILD break-in period to it’s resting plateau would happen after 2-3 weeks where as a 28 ILD foam would take 4-5 weeks to break in fully to the 26?

Foam softening will tend to be greater under the heavier or more “protruding” parts of the body that compress the foam more deeply so foam materials will soften unevenly (which is why foam softening can lead to the loss or comfort and support) but a 19 ILD latex isn’t likely to soften enough that it would be equivalent to a 14 (which would be a loss of ILD of over 25% but a loss of 7% (from 28 to 26) is certainly possible. Even a brand new latex core can have a difference across the surface that is more than this. ILD is never exact and it isn’t likely that anyone would feel any difference in two materials that were only 2 ILD apart different. Latex international for example tests the ILD of a core in 9 different places and a typical blended latex core can easily have a difference of more than that between the highest and the lowest ILD in each of the 9 testing positions on the same core.

A typical “break in” period happens in conjunction with the individual adjustment to any new sleeping surface and the body’s “relearning” of muscle and sleeping memory and will typically be in the range of about 30 - 90 days or so (depending on the specific design of the mattress and the body type, sleeping style, and sensitivity of the person sleeping on it). After this the “feel” of a new mattress will tend to be more stable and foam softening tends to be much slower and more gradual. I don’t know of any way to isolate the effects of one or the other since they happen simultaneously so for some people they both seem to only take only a few days while for others it takes longer.

Phoenix