Latex mattress -- do we need a modification? Advice needed

[phoenix]

Hi Pspa123,

So I am back for one last question here as I STILL have not decided what to do. Another company, a forum member, suggested that rather than replace my current 24 ILD soft layer with a medium and use the soft as a topper, I should instead just add a softer 3 inch 19 ILD blended talalay topper to the current configuration. He didn’t think the other solution would change the feel very much if at all. I expressed concern that at 6’ and 225-230 (my wife is also a tad on the heavy side) we would just sink through this layer, but he assured me this was not the case at all. I do note that this company seems to use different nomenclature for comfort levels – they consider 24 ILD medium while others call it soft. In any event, I would be interested in another opinion, and thank you.

Welcome to the world of contradictory opinions that can often happen even with “experts” (see post #8 here)

Mattress design and theory is as much an art as it is a science and concepts such as softness and firmness and the “feel” of a mattress are very subjective and vary widely between different people. The effect of different constructions and fine tuning a mattress will also depend on where you are inside the “princess and the pea” and “I can sleep on anything” range. Some people will notice a significant effect with very small changes and others don’t seem to notice much difference at all between very different mattresses. In the end … there are so many unknowns and variables that only your own personal experience will tell you whether a specific suggestion or combination works well for you.

In most cases a knowledgeable and experienced manufacturer that makes a mattress would have the most detailed knowledge of all the materials and components in the mattresses they manufacture and the type of changes that have worked will for their customers that are in similar circumstances to you. If I understand you correctly your comfort layer is 21 ILD which would be in the soft range for Talalay latex (you can see the Latex International terminology for their blended Talalay latex here). Of course whether a specific layer “feels” soft or firm or anything in between depends on the body type, sleeping positions, and sensitivities of each person and on how all the specific components and layers of the mattress interact together.

With thicker or softer materials you will sink in more (not through) softer layers and this is particularly true with the heavier parts of the body (such as the pelvis). The goal though is always how evenly you sink in … not how much. There is more about this in post #6 here. If you sink down more with one part of the body relative to the others then you could be out of alignment which is the “risk” of having softer thicker layers in the top layers of the mattress which will separate you more from the firmer support layers below them. They can “allow” the heavier parts to sink down more than the lighter parts but this also depends on the surface area of each part. For example with side sleeping the shoulders are lighter than the hips but they also have a smaller surface area so the weight is more concentrated over a smaller area until they sink in enough for the upper torso to reach the mattress surface at which point the surface area becomes much larger and further sinking in would be “stopped”.

I should also mention that the difference between 21 and 19 ILD is below the limit of detection for most people if the type of latex is the same. With Dunlop then 24 would be more likely to have a “medium” feel for most people because it gets firmer faster with deeper compression than Talalay and the top layers are generally compressed more than the 25% compression where ILD is measured.

Phoenix