Magniflex BioCotton Caresse Deluxe vs Sleeptek Euro 2 mattress

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Hello,

We are shopping for a “healthy” mattress and found your wonderful site, choked full of helpful information.

I have read your guides on the different types of mattresses and we narrowed down our choice from Soma in Toronto to two mattresses: Magniflex BioCotton Caresse Deluxe or Sleeptek Euro 2. Here are the websites respectively:

http://www.magniflex.com/italy/en/collection/geoethic/mattresses/matresses-geoethic/biocotton-caresse-deluxe/63P229F1/
http://sleeptek.ca/products/euro-2-mattress

We have not been able to find any reviews on the Magniflex mattress and Christina from Soma tells us that is a new technology using water to create the foam and that it is certified (Oetek?) and does not off gas. My spouse prefers the Magniflex for its “foam” feel while I am just a little wary due to the lack of info., and the fact that anything that is not “natural” like the rubber latex will have more toxicity.

Just wondering if you can comment on the Magniflex mattress? They are both around the same price for a King. I like that the Sleeptek has a wool layer (no dust mites, and fire retardant) and seems more “natural”. Both mattress tested out fine for me in terms of comfort, so whichever one we end up buying works for me. I would just like your thoughts on the “healthiness” on the Magniflex before we decide on which one to buy.

Thank you for your thoughts.

2

Hi misha,

You have a whole fleet of questions there :wink:

To start off with, if you haven’t, it may help to review the post on how to select the best mattress for yourself. It may help you measure both mattresses easier and help in decision making. Phoenix does a wonderful job with it. You can see it here:
https://forum.mattressunderground.com/t/how-to-look-for-and-find-the-best-mattress-for-you-read-first

The magniflex appears to be a memory foam mattress, and the Sleeptek is a latex mattress. Generally memory foam and latex are described as being at 2 opposite ends of a spectrum. They behave and feel quite differently. It’s a preference which you prefer.

The memory foam in the magniflex appears to be a standard chemical based memory foam (all memory foam is). The safety of memory foam (off gassing, chemicals), is often established by CertiPUR, but they seem to indicate on their website they adhere to a slightly more stringent requirement called Oeko-Tex 100. Unfortunately, I can’t find a document on their website on what materials they have Oeko-Tex 100 certified. But assuming it’s all materials/ the entire mattress, then that is usually a strong indicator of safety.

If you are looking for a “natural” product, then the memory foam is by no means a natural material. But for everyday standards (assuming the entire magniflex mattress / all materials within are Oeko-Tex 100), both would be considered safe. If indeed the memory foam is Oeko-Tex 100 certified that’s a higher standard than usual. You can read more about safety and certifications here:

https://forum.mattressunderground.com/t/mattress-question

As to the durability of each, the sleeptek uses a very durable Dunlop latex. For the memory foam, or any other polyfoam, you’d want to know the density. I didn’t see the density documented, but it didn’t look super hard. The first post I linked to has info about the durability of materials. With memory foam, good material starts at about 5lbs.

From personal experience (my wife has horrible allergies to dust mites), we have a green sleep mattress (similar to the sleeptek), with all natural wool and latex. We still use an organic cotton dust mite case for the mattress, and pillows (also all natural latex and wool). She finds the covers still help.

3

Hi Misha,

I think that a “healthy” mattress is somewhat of a misnomer. A mattress needs to provide for healthy sleeping which is mostly a function of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) and the materials need to be “safe” from toxins and offgassing but healthy sleeping is more about the performance and function of the mattress and safety is more about the chemical composition or type of materials in the mattress and they are really two separate issues. A mattress can use “safe” materials and still not be the best design for healthy sleeping for your specific body type, sleeping style, and individual circumstances. There is more about the more important factors involved in healthy sleeping in post #4 here.

The best way to find out if a mattress is a good match in terms of PPP is with careful and objective testing using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post.

The best way to determine the relative “safety” of the materials is with their certifications.

Magniflex is an Italian company that ships their products around the world. The foams they use come from GommaGomma which makes some high quality foams including latex, memory foam, and polyfoam.

Outside of comparing two mattresses based on their suitability or “safety” … when you are comparing two mattresses in terms of quality or value then you would need to know the thickness and type of foam used in every layer of the mattress and the density of any polyfoam and memory foam and the type and blend of any latex to make meaningful comparisons between mattresses in terms of quality and value because durability and the useful life of a mattress would also be an important part of most people’s personal value equation. GommaGomma (and others) use small amounts of water in their chemical formulations for memory foam and polyfoam which reacts with other chemicals to create the “bubbles” in the foam. This is called water blown foam (vs using various gasses or other types of chemical reactions to create the bubbles). European foam producers often use an isocyanate (one of the two main chemicals used to make polyfoam and memory foam) called MDI to make their foam rather than TDI which is used more commonly in North America. This can produce polyfoam and memory foam that can pass the OekoTex certification which is a more stringent certification than CertiPur which is more commonly seen with North American foams. OekoTex is the same “safety” certification that is used to test for the use of harmful substances and offgassing in most latex materials.

Latex is generally a more durable material than polyfoam and memory foam as well (and usually more costly) but there are also higher and lower quality versions of polyfoam and memory foam and the biggest factor in the durability of both is the density of the foams in a specific mattress. I would also keep in mind that the shipping costs of a mattress from Italy to North America will play a role in its cost which is sometimes a reason why some mattresses that use lower quality or less costly materials are in the same budget range as more costly materials such as latex.

You can read a little more about Magniflex in post #6 here and a forum search on “Magniflex” (you can just click this) will bring up some more information and feedback as well.

There is much more information about how to choose a mattress and make meaningful quality and value comparisons in the tutorial post that dn linked as well.

Phoenix