Long-term Dilemma

[phoenix]

Hi Ruler2112,

It’s 2-sided flippable (which I like) and is made of all natural talalay latex, though I don’t believe it’s 100% natural. (He mentioned something about starting with the tree sap and adding a small amount of soap or something to make it form right… I could easily be mistaken here as last night was terrible and I got even less sleep than I have been lately

Talalay is either 100% natural or a blend of 30% natural and 70% synthetic rubber. No mattress core is 100% rubber though (synthetic or natural) because there are also other ingredients besides just the latex used to make the foam that can be 5% to 20% of the formula so what this means is that 100% of the latex in the core is natural … not that the entire core only has latex in it.

The natural is more costly than the blend but is also more elastic and in higher ILD’s may be more “comfortable” for some because of the greater elasticity of natural rubber. It’s less common to see the 100% natural and many people will confuse them.

This hit me like a ton of bricks. How the hell does one get away from this crap?!??!?? I feel like Patrick Swayze in that old movie, They Live. (Caution - there’s a bad word in this video.) Last 15-20 seconds illustrates perfectly how I feel about the mattress situation right now, only with polyfoam in place of the zombies.

Actually there are many people who prefer a thin layer of polyfoam or other less resilient materials (including wool) either above the latex or in the quilting of a latex mattress. Others prefer the more resilient feel of sleeping directly on latex. You can see my answer to a similar comment in post #6 here. I would also go by careful and objective testing for what I call PPP (Pressure rerlief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) over more vague sensations of “feel”. A two sided mattress will also be more durable than the equivalent materials that are one sided and it’s usually “safer” to go a little too firm rather than too soft because you can always improve the pressure relief of a mattress with a topper but to improve the support or make a mattress firmer you need to remove and/or replace layers which is much more difficult.

The only things that make me hesitate to buy it are the 1" of polyfoam in the quilting of each side and the fact that it seems too firm, even though I didn’t experience any pain or discomfort while laying on it. Had a thought after leaving - wonder if he could replace the quilted polyfoam with something like cotton, dacron, or polyester - basically, something that won’t break down - for less than $200 extra?

Both synthetic and natural fibers will pack down and get firmer over time and most synthetic polyester fibers will also break down faster than polyfoam. This level of customization may also not be unless he orders a whole new cover from his supplier or makes them himself (and either way it could add to the cost because of the custom work or small order required). In any case … I personally would have no issue with the polyfoam if I preferred its feel and performance unless polyfoam itself was something you wanted to avoid for reasons other than performance.

Unfortunately, I have no ILD ratings on any of the PLB mattresses - they’re not on PLB’s web site and the guy had never heard of ILD before.

You can see the ILD’s of all the layers (and there are separate layers in all of them) in post #2 here.

I’d appreciate input on what I mentioned above, specifically, the polyfoam quilted into the cover and feeling too firm while still not being painful.

Hopefully this helped but if you have any specific questions that I missed then feel free to let me know.

Phoenix