Hi Amma and thanks for the inquiry and welcome to the forums! Yes, the wool in the cover makes the mattress feel firmer than if that wool weren’t there, but that’s been our default cover for decades and we still only have a 4% return rate, while the industry average for mattress returns is 15-20% and some companies are as high as 35-40%. So you might say that 90%+ of our customers feel like the cotton & wool cover works just fine!
However, if you’re looking for an especially plush or enveloping feel, a 6" mattress with 3" topper is a great way to do that! Having a top layer that is not encased with the rest of the mattress will allow that top layer enough spatial freedom to move upwards when you lay on it, making for a very plush and enveloping feel. This is what I recommend to customers that are used to pillow top mattresses, memory foam mattresses, or people that are looking for a softer or plusher mattress in general. On top of that, not having an inch of wool between yourself and the latex will increase the plushness even further.
Regardless of cover choice, based om the information you’ve provided, I think your choice of layer firmnesses sounds ideal! We normally recommend Talalay for the top layer and Dunlop for the bottom 2 layers, and this is for a few reasons. Talalay is bouncier and springier and is generally better at contour and pressure relief on your hips and shoulders. Dunlop is denser and is generally better at support and maintaining proper spinal alignment so our most common configuration is Talalay for the top layer and Dunlop for the bottom 2 layers. We will recommend Talalay for two or more layers for customers that have things like fibromyalgia, shingles, chronic hip pain, chronic shoulder pain, or anything where they’re sensitive to pressure, or for customers that just prefer a bouncier / springier feel. Outside of those circumstances, a combination of Talalay and Dunlop offers the best chance to be successful for the average person. Again, the best way I can summarize the differences would be to say that Talalay is better at pressure relief on your hips and shoulders and Dunlop is better at maintaining proper spinal alignment and avoiding back pain. However, Talalay can also be helpful in avoiding back pain because it provides more of what we call secondary support. Secondary support fills in the gaps between your body and the mattress. For side sleepers, this is normally the area between a person’s ribs and waist. For back sleepers, this is normally the area between the small of your back and the mattress. If these parts or your body aren’t being held up by the mattress, your muscles will work all night to hold those parts of your body up, which can lead to back pain. Aside from that, women tend to be curvier, especially around their hips, and having a top layer of Talalay can help avoid hip pain and keep the mattress from pushing their hips up, which can also lead to back pain. As such, most of our customers definitely benefit from having one layer of Talalay on top, and Dunlop for the rest of the mattress, but it’s completely up to you what you would like to order.
One last thing to keep in mind is that you’re not really tying your hands either way on the cover setup. If you start with all of your layers in a 10" cotton & wool mattress cover and want to know what it would’ve felt like to order the 7" mattress with topper, you can unzip the top panel of the cover and take it off so you can see the latex and sleep directly on the latex (you can put your sheets down, of course). If you try that and it’s perfect, then (within your trial period) you can ship us your 10" cover, we’ll alter it down to a 7" cover and send it back to you, thereby changing it from a 10" mattress to a 7" mattress with topper.
If you start with the 7" mattress and 3" topper setup and find that it’s too plush, you can ship us the 7" cotton & wool cover and we’ll alter it to a 10" cover and ship it back to you.
In both instances, we wouldn’t charge for the alteration, we would just ask that you pay the cost of shipping to and from your location. Just some things to keep in mind!
but I am grateful for your assistance!