High quality, all natural mattress in the Atlanta area??

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

I have been doing some search, including on this great site, and I am still at a loss, just as I had been warned before embarking on the apparently universally frustrating quest of finding a high quality mattress at a price that won’t leave you poor.
I’ve even been told the great news is that I will only need psychiatric help after I am 70% through the process. :slight_smile:

If budget was not an issue, I would simply go to the store I visited today (naturalsleepandhome.com) and would order a 100% natural fibers, organic mattress in medium firmness, split king and just be done with it all as they all felt wonderful and the make looked very much superior in everything they had in this niche/select store.

Trouble is budget is an issue and the thought of spending around 4000 dollars on a mattress, possibly more, particularly when we also need to get our son one (looking for two) …is quite disconcerting.

The main trait I am looking for in a mattress besides actual comfort - which they all seem to be ready to provide when you try them out at the store - is the exclusive use of natural fibers. Synthetics have always given me a stifling, hot feeling in just about anything , including clothes…so in a word, I can’t stand them. I know that if I sleep on a mattress with synthetics in it, I will feel hot and stifled. Bad luck because apparently, the vast majority of mattresses on the market today include synthetics.

I also remember my best sleep from the time I used to live with my grandmother in Europe, whose mattresses had been made by hand by master mattress makers and were exclusively made with coils, wool and cotton. Sleeping on her mattresses was heaven…and I know the reason was great make by hand and use of all natural fibers, especially a mountain of wool.

Trouble is that just about everything on the market today seems to have some kind of foam in it.
I thought that going with all natural latex would solve this problem but some people seem to argue that even all natural latex will sleep hot compared to just wool and cotton. Great.

The store we visited today did have one mattress with coils, wool and cotton made by OMI (Organicpedic) but I think it may have had some natural latex in it too. This should be fine as many seem to hold all natural latex in high regard. Iif the price was not so destructive (about 5000$ for a split king), it would be an option.

Following the advice on this site, I looked at recommendations of small, independent manufacturers in the Atlanta area, but most seem to use synthetic foam anyway.

There is one manufacturer in tucker, GA who seems to also offer latex beds in addition to those made with synthetic foam, and I plan on asking them more details about how natural these mattresses are, wether they use wool, how they meet the fire retardant federal requirements, etc. These guys seem to promise more humane prices than the fancy store we visited today, but I am not sure how the quality would compare.

If anyone could suggest a mattress with all natural fibers that can be tested and bought in the Atlanta area at a more decent price than what I mentioned above, I would appreciate it.

If not, I am willing to start looking at some online options nation wide and order even without trying - as long as the quality of materials and make is there.

I am yet to get on a mattress that felt truly uncomfortable when tried at the store, even those at mattress firm, so for me the test is long term, not immediate. My own sister had two horror experiences with two mattresses bought at Mattress Firm over the past two years so chain stores and big name brands like those with S are out of the question. Otherwise, even the crappiest mattresses seem to test fine at the store, except the really low end ones.

Any suggestions would be immensely appreciated.

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Hi Syracusa,

Your best chance of success would be to follow the steps in the mattress shopping tutorial one at a time. Only you can feel what you feel on a mattress and only your own personal testing or experience can assess whether a mattress is a good match for you in terms of PPP.

Other than PPP … the most important part of the “value” of a mattress purchase is making sure you know the quality of all the materials inside it so you can identify any weak links (generally lower quality polyfoam, memory foam, or synthetic fibers) and make meaningful comparisons to other mattresses.

When you are confident that a mattress is suitable for you and that it uses durable materials then the last part of the value of a mattress purchase would be based on the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you (including price, return or exchange options etc).

[quote]Trouble is that just about everything on the market today seems to have some kind of foam in it.
I thought that going with all natural latex would solve this problem but some people seem to argue that even all natural latex will sleep hot compared to just wool and cotton. Great.[/quote]

Latex is the most breathable of all the foam materials but it isn’t as breathable or temperature regulating as natural fibers. Post #2 here has more about all the variables that can affect sleeping temperature outside of just the foam used in the comfort layers of a mattress (including the cover, quilting, mattress protector, and your sheets and bedding) but it would be very unusual for someone to sleep hot on a latex mattress with wool quilted to a breathable cover.

You may be OK with blended latex (which isn’t the same as synthetic polyfoam, memory foam, or synthetic fibers and is breathable like natural latex) however there is also 100% natural Talalay and 100% natural Dunlop latex if you are more comfortable with the all natural versions of latex. There is more about the different types and blends of latex in post #6 here.

They certainly carry some high quality mattresses but they are also in a more premium budget range than many similar mattresses that use the same or similar materials. I would also be cautious because their description on the site indicates that their PLB mattresses use 100% natural Talalay but they also say that the mattresses have a 20 year warranty which is the length of the warranty for their blended Talalay mattresses. The PLB mattresses that use 100% natural Talalay have a 10 year warranty.

Post #4 here has a list of some of the manufacturers that make natural fiber/innerspring mattresses and you can check the retail store finders on their site (or call them) to check if any of them have any retailers in the Atlanta area. Many of these also make innerspring/latex hybrids with wool quilted covers as well.

You’ve probably seen this as well but just in case you haven’t the better options and possibilities I’m aware of in the Atlanta area are listed in post #2 here. You would need to check their websites or call them to see which retailers or manufacturers carry mattresses that you would be interested in testing.

Post #2 here may also be well worth reading since their criteria seems to be similar to yours.

There are certainly many high quality and durable options available to you in a significantly lower budget range that what you’ve been looking at but your best chance of success would be to follow the steps in the tutorial post one step at a time.

Phoenix

3

Thank you for your detailed answer, Phoenix!

I have already spoken with a few local manufacturers indicated in that post about Atlanta and they all seem to include some synthetic foam/layers in the mattresses they make and the FR requirement appears to be addressed with chemicals. I wasn’t that impressed.

The dearth of natural/organic mattress options in this area is unbelievable…which makes me wonder, why are Southerners so sure and relaxed that chemicals and synthetics of all sorts are just aw-right? :slight_smile: And if they are not afraid of the poison itself, how about sleeping hot in that horrible polyeutherane, especially in a hot and humid climate like this?
With all the millions of people the Atlanta area has, nobody cares to go to a store that uses all natural materials in a mattress? Waow.
Other than that naturalsleepandhome.com, there is virtually no place where you can go and try out some mattresses with ALL natural materials (cotton and wool exclusively, or maybe some 100% natural latex layers added, but nothjng else, and no chemical FR-s).

As we are in the market for two mattresses, not one, we are thinking of simply ordering a full size for our son first - from one of the reputable manufacturers you indicated on that list, who use all natural materials. Some were in Chicago, others in Connecticut, some in California, etc.

I know it is very important to try out a mattress first but I cannot imagine any mattress from any of those manufacturers feeling horrible. Virtually all we tried in the local stores felt very nice when tested right there, including the big S-es from Mattress Firm. Some were softer, some were firmer - but we can deal with a wide range of options.
The big deal for us is how it will act LONG TERM and how it feels throughout the night (no stifling feeling from polyesters and synthetic foams, please!).

My sister bought two mattresses from Mattress Firm over the past two years and they both turned out to be pure junk in 2-3 months despite feeling just fine when tried out at the store. They both sunk it, made her roll over right in the middle, the box springs (which don’t actually have springs) started squeaking like crazy…just horrible. She took one back and the other she’s ready to throw away to the dumpster.

So it seems to me that buying without trying online is not all that different from trying it in the store first - since they all feel fine there in the beginning. Both ourselves and our son can sleep on firm-ish and we can also sleep on softer as well as long as the core doesn’t sink in.
Our 8 yo he has been sleeping on some thin foam mattress from Ikea that moves around - it doesn’t even feel like a mattress, it’s more like a piece of foam. Another piece of junk, but we didn’t know any better at the time.

So I am pretty sure anything that would come in from any of those sites you indicated will feel wonderful anyway by comparison.

What really gets to me is when I look at sites like Hastens (the “super premium” ones apparently made for immortals only).
Those are indeed very high quality, very well-made mattresses with all natural materials - but they are nothing that a middle to upper-middle class family could not afford in the past. I know that because my grandparents belonged to that category of people and they had exactly THOSE kinds of mattresses, custom made by hand by mattress craftsmen.

We grew up on Hasten-type mattresses and they indeed felt wonderful now when I look back in retrospective and compare that feeling with the feeling you get from contemporary junk.

Now a Hasten-type mattress (very well crafted, with all natural materials) is clearly made for immortals only, when prices go in to mid 5 figures. Who buys those? Queen Elizabeth and 10 others?

We are not a family with financial problems and yet just the thought of DARING to dream of such a mattress boggles the mind. At the same time it feels so absurd because I grew up on one and I don’t think it’s something that you need to be shameless to expect.
It’s not like it’s made of diamonds, it’s simply a very well-crafted mattress with very honest materials, not magic.

I am not even sure which masses were worse off: yesterday’s masses who used to sleep on a pile of straw or today’s masses forced to sleep on poisoned polyeuthrane. At least the former slept on a natural material, as uncomfortable as it probably was.

Oh, well.

If there are any of those on the “all natural list” with more reasonable prices and highly trustworthy, we would appreciate it if you could steer us in their direction so we can simply order a full size mattress for our son at first.

Thank you so much!

4

Hi Syracusa,

There are many mattresses that use barrier systems to pass the fire regulations which are completely safe. There are also many people who are quite comfortable with the relative safety of polyfoams and memory foams that are CertiPur certified (or have other certifications for harmful substances and VOC’s). They certainly aren’t “poisonous” (unless you eat them) and all synthetic materials aren’t harmful (see post #3 here).

You can read more about fire retardants in this article and in post #2 here and post #4 here and while some concern or caution about “chemicals in mattresses” is certainly warranted … there is also a lot of misinformation and “fear mongering” in the industry about this very controversial subject. There is a great deal more information in post #2 here and the other posts and sources of information it links to that can help sort through the more detailed, frustrating, and often contradictory information that can help each person answer “how safe is safe enough for me?”.

As you mentioned … if a mattress that meets your criteria isn’t available locally then you would still have some good online options available to you (although there seems to be several local options available to you that would meet your “all natural and safe” and “reasonable budget” criteria if you are including all natural latex as an option). Outside of the links that I included in my last reply … the tutorial post also includes this link to a list of the manufacturers/retailers that are members here that sell mattresses online that includes several that would probably meet your criteria for “all natural” and “safe” mattresses. Many of these are component mattresses that provide good options after a purchase to further customize the mattress if your first choice isn’t an ideal match for you in terms of PPP.

Phoenix

5

Thank you, Phoenix!

The guys I talked to were not clear about fire retardants and one said that he had to include the chemical treatment even with a dr’s note. It sounded odd to me.

Also, for me it’s not so much that I believe all synthetics are poisonous - after all women wear hose and lycra and all sorts of make-up on their faces without giving it another thought; and I am one of them.

The trouble for me is that sleeping in synthetics heats me up. I need to sleep in all breathable materials and this is why I am looking for all natural (cotton, wool, 100% latex).

Also, what do you know about Shifman’s at Bloomingdales?
I kjnow their prices are very high…but I am just curious. They were touted as a good ol’ quality giant on one other mattress site I visited (oldbedguy).

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Hi Syracusa,

That’s certainly not correct. Most mattresses don’t add chemical treatments in the first place (they use inherent fabrics as a fire barrier) and if you have a doctor’s prescription then you don’t need any fire retardants at all (barrier or otherwise).

This would probably be more true for synthetic fabrics than it would for synthetic foams. While it’s certainly true that natural fibers are more breathable and temperature regulating than synthetic fibers or any foam material (including latex) … there are many synthetic foams that are quite breathable and there are also many variables that have just as big an effect on the sleeping temperature of a mattress as the foam used in the mattress (such as the fabric in the cover, the quilting material, your mattress protector, and your sheets and bedding). There is more about the many factors that combine together that can affect the sleeping temperature of a mattress or “sleeping system” in post #2 here.

[quote]Also, what do you know about Shifman’s at Bloomingdales?
I kjnow their prices are very high…but I am just curious. They were touted as a good ol’ quality giant on one other mattress site I visited (oldbedguy). [/quote]

To me the name of the manufacturer on the label means very little. Outside of how well a mattress matches your specific needs and preferences in terms of PPP … a mattress is only as good as its construction and the quality of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer. You can see my thoughts about Shifman in post #15 here and a forum search on Shifman (you can just click this) will bring up more information and feedback about them as well.

The most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase are listed in post #13 here and while a Shifman may be a good match in terms of PPP (and this could also be true for even very low budget mattresses that use low quality materials) … it wouldn’t do as well when you are considering the quality of the materials (in some of their mattresses) or in their higher end mattresses that do use high quality materials they certainly wouldn’t do well in terms of their relative “value” compared to other mattresses that use the same or better quality materials and sell in much lower price ranges or based on all the parts of your personal value equation that would be important to most people.

Phoenix