Hi, this website is incredible, I’m blown away by the amount of knowledge found here!! Thank you for all your help.
Stats:
Me - 34 years old, 6’3" 190 lbs. Combo sleeper, mostly side but also back and stomach. No chronic medical issues.
Wife - 33 years old, 5’2" 130 lbs. Combo sleeper, mostly side. Chronic upper back pain.
I’m on the hunt for a split king mattress. My budget is fairly flexible, so I’m hoping to get something that will feel amazing for a good long time. Everything seems to point to a full latex bed to fulfill that.
I am planning on getting the 6" medium ILD (28-33ILD) natural Dunlop latex core with a 2" natural Talalay latex topper (hoping to request this in softer ILD).
I also plan on using the Luna mattress protector that is recommended elsewhere in these forums.
My questions: Based on our stats, am I making a mistake in the materials I’m using? Is there anything I could potentially add to give us a more luxurious experience?
One of the mattress stores I visited made a big deal about the New Zealand wool, in it’s topper I think. Would adding a layer of wool over the 2" Talalay latex layer provide me a noticeably better night’s sleep? I know that may be completely subjective, I’m just looking for opinions from people more knowledgeable than myself.
Thank you for the kind words. We are always happy to hear that people appreciate the many years of hard work that have gone into providing a fine-tuned educational resource
It sounds like a split mattress is likely a good fit with your weight differential and what I imagine are different preferences in terms of comfort/support levels. A full latex bed is a great option that will be extremely durable and will also lend itself to great motion isolation.
I’d say you’re choosing really solid materials and without knowing exactly what you feel when you lay on the mattress, I don’t see any glaring mistakes in terms of ILD. When you say you want a more luxurious experience, do you just mean something softer? Your bedding can certainly contribute to a luxury experience. While I don’t think we’ve ever had a thread that focuses on the experience that bedding can provide, there is more information about comforters in the posts and topics that are linked in post #3 here.
There is also more information about the different types of sheets and bedding in post #7 here and the other posts and sources of information it links to that should be helpful as well.
As you mentioned yourself, this is pretty subjective. Wool will certainly change the experience you have on the latex. Whether you like that experience is not something I can predict. To take some words out of Phoenix’s book…
Wool will provide extra comfort, and overall it would probably “slightly” firm up the surface feel of our mattress, but you would still experience the contouring of the latex beneath. There is more information about wool toppers and how they compare to various foam toppers (at least in very general terms) in post #8 here and in posts #3 and #6 here and there are some additional comments about wool toppers and a list of some of the better sources I’m aware of in post #3 here.
Hopefully you find some of these resources useful.
Ken at Arizona Premium is also a great resource and would be happy to discuss your questions with you!
I agree with Nikki, wool is super nice and all, I have wool duvets, but I don’t want anything between me and the talalay expect a thin sheet. Otherwise it compresses it and you just don’t get the same feel.
I’ve been in latex for many years now and I’m just doing some research right now for a friend. I suggested to her 4" firm, 2" med, 4" soft and I’m trying to find anyone else who has tried this configuration. I’m quite surprised to see so many people talking about medium cores and talalay cores. I’ve always been under the mind of a minimum 4" of firm and that all the support layers should be dunlop, talalay for the last topper. I guess there’s more for me to know, now I’m wondering what I’m missing with these talalay cores and medium cores. (head scratching).
Just so you know, my configurations are: Me 5,6" 125lbs - side and stomach sleeper. Husband 5’10" 200lbs - side and back sleeper. Husband gets sore shoulders on a firm mattress, but sore lower back when too soft. I prefer a firm mattress because I like to go to my stomach without my back arching, but 4" of soft latex is still my minimum confort requirement as long as there’s a firm core. (as far as I know)
City mattress: 4" firm dunlop, 4"med dunlop, 2" soft dunlop, 2" soft talalay - perfect for both of us
Cabin mattress: 6" firm dunlop, 2" soft dunlop, 2" soft talalay - a bit too firm for my husband
[quote=“geesahn post=90693”]I agree with Nikki, wool is super nice and all, I have wool duvets, but I don’t want anything between me and the talalay expect a thin sheet. Otherwise it compresses it and you just don’t get the same feel.
I’ve been in latex for many years now and I’m just doing some research right now for a friend. I suggested to her 4" firm, 2" med, 4" soft and I’m trying to find anyone else who has tried this configuration. I’m quite surprised to see so many people talking about medium cores and talalay cores. I’ve always been under the mind of a minimum 4" of firm and that all the support layers should be dunlop, talalay for the last topper. I guess there’s more for me to know, now I’m wondering what I’m missing with these talalay cores and medium cores. (head scratching).
Just so you know, my configurations are: Me 5,6" 125lbs - side and stomach sleeper. Husband 5’10" 200lbs - side and back sleeper. Husband gets sore shoulders on a firm mattress, but sore lower back when too soft. I prefer a firm mattress because I like to go to my stomach without my back arching, but 4" of soft latex is still my minimum confort requirement as long as there’s a firm core. (as far as I know)
City mattress: 4" firm dunlop, 4"med dunlop, 2" soft dunlop, 2" soft talalay - perfect for both of us
Cabin mattress: 6" firm dunlop, 2" soft dunlop, 2" soft talalay - a bit too firm for my husband[/quote]
Dunlop and talalay latex foam are both durable materials for bedding but they both have very different characteristics when loaded. For the same amount of force/area (pressure) talalay has more give (deflection) than Dunlop. This is not good or bad, just something people need to be aware of when designing their own mattress. The most common mattress design you see with latex is made of 3" latex layers of firm/med/soft (often all but the top layer being Dunlop). It’s good that you’ve found configurations that work for you but again it’s important to know why they work for you especially if you are recommending configurations to others as well. Dunlop works great as a support layer because of it’s minimal deflection under load. Similarly talalay works well as a comfort layer for exactly the opposite reason. This is where it starts to get tricky because people that have higher BMIs need more support (firmer layers) but being curvy (broad shoulders, big rear, wide hips, etc) complicates this issue since you’re now asking the material to be both supportive and allow for more deflection under load. This is why some people do better with talalay support layers instead of Dunlop. I suspect in your cabin mattress case above that the issue your husband is having is that he’s going through the upper layers (2" soft dunlop, 2" soft talalay) and the firm Dunlop core is not providing the displacement he needs to be comfortable. You may need to add additional medium layers similar to your home mattress so he’s able to get support from the upper layers before he hits the firm core at the bottom. Hope this makes sense.
I would definitely talk with Ken about your choices but to me part of the danger in a design like this is that a 6" core doesn’t make it very easy to adjust if you don’t get it perfect right away.
If I were building it I would do something like this:
Her side;
2" talalay in 19 or 22 ILD
3" dunlop or talalay in 28 ILD (use talalay if the person is curvy/bony)
3" dunlop or talalay in 32 ILD (use talalay if the person is curvy/bony)
Your side:
2" talalay in 19 or 22 ILD
3" dunlop or talalay in 28 or 32 ILD (use dunlop with higher ILDs for preferred stomach sleeping, lower ILD for side/back, talalay if the person is curvy/bony)
3" dunlop or talalay in 32 or 36 ILD (use dunlop with higher ILDs for preferred stomach sleeping, lower ILD for side/back, talalay if the person is curvy/bony)
This will allow you to adjust both sides of the split king independently and really fine tune it to your liking (swapping out layers as needed) but again just my $0.02 on the design.
