Hello all! I found this site while shopping for a new mattress and it has been extremely helpful. I have settled on the “Ultimate Dreams Eurotop Latex Mattress” by Dreamfoam Bedding, the Amazon storefront for Brooklyn Bedding. I have already been in communication with Chuck who has been very helpful (even though I have yet to place my order!). My only remaining question in what comfort level to select. Note that this will be my first latex mattress. I settled on latex due to it’s purported durability as well as comfort. My current mattress is a: “Scandanavian Comfort Pressure Relief System High Performance Pillow Top Sleep Set ‘Tivoli Gardens’ Visco Elastic Memory Foam #WT51402” that I purchased locally 11 years ago. Both my wife and I were very satisfied with the firmness and comfort of this mattress when new but the memory foam started to compress after 4 years or so and now there are depressions where we sleep. What I need to know is what “number” would be the right choice in the latex layer on the dreamfoam to approximate the same comfort level as my old mattress. I am probably overworking this but I’d like to “get it right” the first time so that I can avoid changing the latex out later. I am leaning towards a 7 comfort level. Any ideas? Anyone farmiliar with both my old mattress brand and the ultimate dreams? Thanks in advance.
You are certainly looking in a good direction as far as quality and value
As far as choosing a comfort level though … there are really only three ways to do this.
The first is in real time side by side comparisons of a mattress you are considering with a mattress you are trying to “match” which of course wouldn’t be possible here. You could also estimate whether your mattress was either soft medium or firm by “average” standards (which of course is very subjective and each person may have a very different sense of just what this means) and then use this as a guideline for whether to choose their default choice or go a little bit firmer or softer
The second is by trying to match the “specs” of your own mattress or mattresses you have tested locally that use similar materials and layering that you liked and provided you with the PPP (Pressure relief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) that matched your needs and preferences.
It wouldn’t be possible to do this with your own mattress because you would need to know all the details of all the layers inside it and even if you were able to find this out the materials and layering is very different from the mattress you are considering. A memory foam mattress has a completely different feel and response from latex and can’t really be “translated” into latex terms. This may be possible though if there are similar mattress you could test locally that used similar materials and layers where you could find out all the details of the layers inside the mattress and use this as a guideline.
The last way is to use the knowledge and expertise of the manufacturer or retailer you are dealing with. They have more detailed knowledge of their own mattresses than anyone else and will have a rough guideline of which choices tend to work best “on average” for different body types and sleeping styles based on the averages of their own customer base that are similar to you. The more specific information you can provide them, the more you can help them help you make the best choice possible.
One of the advantages with their mattresses (or at least the Eurotop and Total Latex on Amazon and the new models that they are just launching on their own site) is that they offer a layer exchange in case your original choice isn’t the best possible one for you. A low cost option to exchange layers helps to reduce the risk of making the wrong choice with an online purchase and I would factor the possibility of this into your purchase because in the end only your own body can really know what will end up being best for you and everything up till then is really only “best estimates”.
Hi Phoenix, Thanks for the very prompt reply! I understand your points and I think I am just going to make a “best guess” at this point and hope for the best! After all - a wrong initial guess will likely only cost me about 10% more than base price with the exchange program. Thanks again for your input and I will post back on my purchase after I have the mattress.
My mattress came yesterday and we immediately unpacked it and placed it on the bed that we already had ready. It filled out very quickly and I am impressed with the quality and appearance. Have only slept on it for one night but have a few first impressions:
Latex definitely seems to be firmer than memory foam. The 7 comfort that I ordered is (first impression) just a little firmer than I would have preferred. I read somewhere on this forum in a comparison of latex and memory foam that “you sleep in a memory foam mattress - you sleep on a latex mattress” - a truer statement has never been made!
It definitely seems cooler than memory foam.
Support and pressure point relief are both excellent.
Since it is such a “different” experience than my old mattress I plan to give myself a couple of weeks before deciding whether I will stick with the 7 comfort latex or go for an 8 or even 9.
All in all I am quite satisfied so far. Thanks again for your help!
It can be difficult as you know to directly compare latex and memory foam because the softness of memory foam is affected by so many factors (density, temperature, response time, humidity etc) and comfort is so subjective that it’s difficult to quantify but i think that most people would probably agree that latex in the more “average” range feels firmer than most (but not all) memory foam. It’s also a different kind of softness and each has a very different “feel” that can both take some initial adjustment for the first few weeks (depending on the type of mattress you are used to).
This is a very good idea and your decision about whether to make a comfort exchange and/or which one to exchange for will be more “accurate” in a couple of weeks once you have gone through an initial “adjustment” to a new sleeping surface than it will when you first sleep on any new mattress.
Thanks for the great feedback and for sharing your experience
