We tried a few different beds this weekend. We went to The Clean Bedroom in Wellesley on Saturday, hoping to try Savvy Rest. They didn’t have much Savvy on display, because it seems that the Wellesley showroom is featuring Obasan now, so three beds in the tiny shop were devoted to that. They directed us to Obasan first (I didn’t ask about the Savvy until later). Obasan has a three section head-to-foot zoning that we really enjoyed. I don’t think we want to plunk down $5,299 for a mattress/foundation, but it did kind of sell me on the head-to-foot zoning idea in general. That may have just shot up our priority list. Some really nice people working at that store, and it was mostly empty because the weather was lousy.
They did have one twin size Savvy that I tried. It was a (bottom to top) firm/med/soft Dunlop with a soft Talalay topper. I liked the feel of the topper, though I suspect that the bed as a whole would have been too soft to sleep in. It did make me wonder if the Dunlop on the Obasan was feeling a little too firm on the surface to me. My husband thought it was too soft, but he liked the bed without the topper.
Today, we went to Bedrooms (creative name, huh?) in Peabody, MA, because a web search told me they carry PLB. PLB’s retailer locator is not currently available online, and I didn’t get a response from an email I sent to them. I wanted to get a little more experience with Talalay latex. They did have three beds on display, Pamper, Nature, and Beautiful. I think we liked the Pamper with the InteLa-Tec topper the most. My husband liked the Nature on its own, but I thought it might have felt just a little firm.
One thing I regret is that I was trying to find a combination that might work for side and stomach sleeping with the Obasan, but after I left, I thought maybe I should have tried focusing on just side sleeping also to see how that worked out.
I’m having trouble defining my sleep style accurately (not that I think you can define it for me, but maybe you have some feedback on my thought process). I’ve never had a mattress I picked out just for me. About 12 years ago, I moved in with my now husband, and ever since we’ve been sleeping on the innerspring mattress that he had bought prior to that. I’ve liked sleeping on my stomach because of the coziness (I think even before moving in with my husband), but also because I think the mattresses I’ve had have not supported me well on my side, so I end up not being fully comfortable in either position, thus switching back and forth. More recently in our time with the innerspring, I’d been stomach sleeping less both because the pressure on my knee would bother me and because the support of the lower back was becoming worse. I am not sure how much of the knee issue was due to my knee getting old and how much was due to the mattress breaking down.
We did in-home trials of both the Sleep Number and the Casper, and with those I haven’t been stomach sleeping at all, because they are too soft for my lower back. At this point, in the last several months I think I’ve been sleeping on my side pretty much all the time, turning from one side to the other.
It’s really hard (for me at least) to find a mattress that’s supportive enough on my stomach without being too hard on my hips while on my side. At this point, I may have trained myself to sleep on my side, so maybe I should just go with that. It is true that stomach sleeping can be really hard on my neck, and picking a pillow that works for both may be even more difficult than a bed that works for both. Maybe if I dial in a really comfy side-sleeping mattress setup, that will do the trick.
At this point, I am starting to lean towards Floods and plan to call them up tomorrow for a chat to see what advice they have.
I do have some questions the differences between Talalay/Dunlop and synthetic/natural. From what you’ve said, I know it’s mostly a personal preference, but I’m just trying to clarify what I’ve read to see if I’ve assimilated it correctly, especially since Flobeds is only Talalay.
- Talalay is often a synthetic/natural blend, in that 100% Talalay
wasn’t available until more recently, but it sounds like that’s not necessarily a disadvantage. There isn’t a strong body of evidence for durability one way or the other.
- If it’s not explicitly stated as 100% natural Talalay by the manufacturer, then most likely it’s some sort of blend. I suspect that the Therapedics/Boston Bed model we tried is blended. The Savvy Rest topper seems like it would be 100% natural? Do you know about the PLB mattresses? I would guess blended. Also, the retailer had three toppers on display, one was labeled organic, so that might have been 100% natural, one was labeled InteLa-tec, which as far as I can tell is a blend (unless it’s all synthetic? Is that done?), and the other was labeled Active Fusion, which seems to be their temperature-regulating version of latex. Seems likely to me that it would be some kind of blend, but it did feel different than the InteLa-tec. Mostly I’m just trying to get a handle on the ways in which the latex we have felt in person might compare to Flobeds either blended or 100% natural Talalay).
- Dunlop is often regarded as firmer feeling than Talalay at the same ILDs.
- Talalay has a somewhat different compression response than Dunlop?
Are there any drawbacks related to higher weight individuals with Talalay (i.e. durability or support) as opposed to Dunlop? Or is it just a matter of choosing the correct firmness (and the personal preference factor of course). Mainly, I’m just trying to figure out if there are any obvious gotchas lurking if we go with Flobeds.
It’s hard to say without testing the exact mattress, but at this point, we’ve tried some Talalay that we liked, so I think there’s at least a good chance that it could work out for us preference-wise. We haven’t done the most thorough job at alignment testing. I don’t have the best confidence in my testing abilities in general, and I feel kind of awkward in stores, but that’s where a return policy/comfort exchange comes in handy.
I really do feel more comfortable having a return policy versus the local retailers where often you can only exchange for another product they sell or do a comfort exchange on layers (i.e. Savvy and Obasan). While I believe we’ve tried enough latex at this point that I really think it could work for us, there’s still that element of the unknown. The Flobeds comfort guarantee (I know it’s not an exchange because you keep the old piece) is more expensive on their cores than some other manufacturers would be in the short term after purchase, but it does extend longer. Additionally, the vZone model adds a big advantage because they will send you free sections for the vZone in the first 100 days and only $20 in the next five years. That gives a lot of flexibility to adjust after purchase without too much extra cash outlay (unless of course one of the full cores turns out to be the issue).