Hi Kristinebean04,
Just to keep all the suggestions you will receive on a forum such as this in perspective … what works “perfectly” for one person or even for a group of people may not work at all for someone else and each person’s preferences or experiences on the same mattress or materials can be very different from someone else. There are people in the 400 lb weight range or higher that do very well on a Talalay latex mattress and find it very supportive while others may prefer different types of latex. Just as an example in my own family … my own personal preference is an all talalay latex mattress (which doesn’t mean it’s better than other types of latex or even a different material completely for someone else) yet my daughter’s preference (who is much lighter than me) is an all Dunlop mattress. Clearly preferences for the type of latex that someone may prefer doesn’t run in families :). Others yet like LookingNow may have other preferences yet but preference choices (which all of these are) are not the same as “better worse” choices and can be misleading if you read them as applying to others (or yourself) or to different mattress designs that use the same materials. They only apply to people that have that specific preference.
There is more about the differences between Talalay and Dunlop in post #7 here but once again … the choice between them is a preference choice not a better/worse choice.
All type and blends of latex comes in a wide range of firmness options and there are also thousands of different latex mattress designs that use different types, firmness levels, and thicknesses of latex that would be suitable for different body types and preferences so if a mattress that uses one type of latex isn’t “supportive” for a particular person or a good match in terms of PPP … the odds are very high that a different design using different firmness levels or layer combinations of the same type of latex can be perfectly supportive and a good match for that same person in terms of PPP.
There is much more information about the different types of gel materials in post #2 here and the many posts it links to.
As you can see in the previous link … this is “partly true” because the temperature regulating effects of gel tend to be temporary (depending on the type of gel, the percentage of gel, and on the material it’s added to) but once temperatures equalize then the properties of the material that the gel is added to become more important and dominant. In other words the gel won’t make things hotter but their effect on temperature regulation is usually temporary. All memory foam is an “open cell” material but some are more open celled and breathable than others. There is more about the different ways that can be used to cool down memory foam in post #6 here.
There is also more about all the many variables that can affect sleeping temperature in post #2 here.
Phoenix