Hi sundance,
[quote]I have recently found your website as well as read some blogs from OldBedGuy and I realize now that there is so much information or misinformation out there. We are having a new baby and really wasn’t to have as little synthetic material and chemicals where we sleep and in the house in general. We were close to buying a Charles P Rogers Powercore Nano king mattress ($2319 after discount) after reading about it on the OldBedGuy blog and then going to the showroom and lying on their mattresses. However, it is unclear to us if their claim of using Talalay latex mean that is is all organic or passes GOLS standards.
Is there a list of the mattress brands that pass the GOLS standard? GOTS? or Oeko-Tex Standard.[/quote]
There is more information in post #2 here and the more detailed posts and information it links to about safe, natural, organic, “chemical free”, and “green” mattresses and mattress materials and components that can help you sort through some of the marketing information and terminology that you will encounter in the industry and can help you differentiate between them and answer “how safe is safe enough for me” or “how organic is organic enough for me” so you can decide on the types of materials you are most comfortable having in your mattress. These types of issues are complex and are generally specific to each person and their individual sensitivities, circumstances, criteria, beliefs, and lifestyle choices.
Most (although certainly not all) people that are looking for an “organic” mattress are usually concerned more with “safety” than whether the latex or the mattress has an organic certification. There is more information about the three different levels of organic certifications in post #2 here and some of the benefits of an organic certification in post #3 here and there is more about the different types of organic and safety certifications in post #2 here and more about some of the differences between organic and safety certifications in post #2 here that can help you decide whether an organic certification is important to you for environmental, social, or personal reasons or whether a “safety” certification is enough.
If organic certifications are an important criteria for you then a retailer or manufacturer should be able to show you any certifications that would apply to their mattresses and/or the individual materials and components to confirm that any organic claims are legitimate.
As you probably know Sleep on Latex is one of the members of this site which means that I think highly of them and that I believe that they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, knowledge, and transparency but as far as I know the only claim they make about organic materials that I have seen on their website is for their cotton covers. Their latex is 100% natural Dunlop.
Clean Bedroom carries some mattresses that use organic latex and/or covers.
I don’t see any mattresses at Craigs Beds that use organic materials or components.
This mattress only contains 2" of Dunlop latex which based on their description appears to be 100% natural but I don’t see anything in the description that indicates that it is certified organic. It also contains a 1.75" polyfoam transition layer and a 6" polyfoam base layer which of course are completely synthetic materials.
They don’t mention whether the polyfoam layers are CertiPUR certified.
They also don’t mention the density of the polyfoam layers but if you can find out the information in this article (particularly the density of the polyfoam) and post it on the forum I’d certainly be happy to let you know if there are any lower quality materials or weak links in the mattress that would be a cause for concern in terms of durability.
Without this information it’s not possible to assess the quality or durability of the materials or the mattress “as a whole” or make meaningful comparisons to other mattresses. I would avoid any mattress where you aren’t able to find out all the information you need to make an informed choice.
Hopefully you’ve already read the mattress shopping tutorial here which includes all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that can help you make the best possible choice … and perhaps most importantly know how and why to avoid the worst ones.
Two of the most important links in the tutorial that I would especially make sure you’ve read are post #2 here which has more about the different ways to choose a suitable mattress (either locally or online) that is the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort” and PPP that can help you assess and minimize the risks of making a choice that doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for and post #13 here which has more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a mattress compared to your other finalists (based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you).
The better options or possibilities I’m aware of in and around the New York City area (subject to making sure that any mattress you are considering meets your specific criteria and the quality/value guidelines I linked in the last paragraph) are listed in post #2 here.
Phoenix