Sorry if this question has already arisen (couldn’t find it on the forum)… but has anyone had any experience with Lifekind mattresses? I’m looking for an earth-friendly latex mattress with minimal offgassing, and they seem quite good. However, their mattresses are quite expensive and I’m open to a similar alternative. In particular, I was looking at the Duet, which is flippable.
Hi Sonja,
Lifekind is a sister company to OMI (Organicpedic) both of which use high quality materials in their mattresses and have an organic certified factory but are also quite costly compared to other similar latex mattresses that use the same materials.
A forum search on Lifekind (you can just click this) will bring up some more information about them.
Post #1 here may also be helpful and has the basic information, steps, and guidelines that will help you make the best possible choices and a link to the online members of the site some of which sell very similar latex mattresses.
Phoenix
Thanks for your comments and links. I really appreciate it.
After a day of searching and reading posts here, I think I may go with mattresses.net. They seem to be reputable and use quality materials. And their prices seem reasonable. I’m a bit divided on whether to buy a bed rug from savvy rest or just buy a foundation from mattresses.net; I live in a humid climate and have a platform bed with not much circulation under it (the platform contains drawers), so I may go with the wood foundation…
Thanks again for your help!! 
Hi Sonja,
As you know, Mattresses.net is a member here and I think highly of the quality and value of their mattresses and of course their knowledge and experience.
It would probably depend on whether your platform bed has a solid surface or slats (and if it has slats on whether they flex or are rigid and on the distance between them). You can read a little more about the potential risks involved in a solid surface base in post #7 here and the post it links to.
Both a slatted foundation and the bed rug would work well for providing ventilation under a mattress although they would raise the sleeping surface of the mattress to different degrees and this may also be a factor that is important to you.
Phoenix
I have been looking at the OMI organicpedic terra in king, but the price is … I came upon Lifekind, which would seem to be a mail-order relative of OMI at a slightly cheaper price, but they don’tseem to list their version of the OMI Terra. Any thoughts on how to find a comparable mattress from Lifekind?
Hi chicojerry,
Lifekind and OMI are “sister” companies with the same ownership but with different mattress designs. They don’t have the Terra in their lineup (which is an OMI model).
There is more about “matching” one mattress to another in post #9 here. While it would be fairly simple to match the Terra mattress in terms of the type and quality of the materials (which are available to many manufacturers) this doesn’t mean that two mattresses will feel and perform the same way in terms of PPP because every difference in design or components between two mattresses (including layer firmness, layer thickness, and the cover and quilting materials) can have an effect on its feel and performance. If you talk with Lifekind on the phone though they should be able to tell you which of their mattresses are closest to the Terra design (they would likely be familiar with the OMI mattresses). The only time a match would be exact would be if every layer and component were exactly the same.
In some cases you may be looking at an approximation because another manufacturer you are considering may not use the same layer thicknesses, have the same firmness levels available for each layer, use a different cover or quilting, or have other differences that aren’t available elsewhere (such as the “sculpting” of the latex). Once you know the specifics of a mattress you are trying to “match” (which hopefully has a fairly simple design and where the type of materials and the quality and comfort specifications are known or can be found out) then it may also be worth considering the manufacturers listed in post #21 here which includes the members of this site that sell latex mattresses online and you can look for mattresses that use the same type of latex in a design that is as close as possible to the Lifekind you are trying to “approximate”. They are all knowledgeable and helpful on the phone, use good quality materials (including the same type of latex that OMI and Lifekind use), and if they know the details of a mattress you are considering then they can help you decide which of the options they carry may be closest to the Lifekind you are considering (even if it isn’t the same).
Phoenix