Hi CNJ,
Carolina Mattress Guild is a regional manufacturer which has better odds of being better quality/value than most major brand mattresses but any specific mattress is only as good as the construction and materials inside it and like many other manufacturers some of their mattresses use lower quality foams that I wouldn’t consider at all. The only way to know the quality or value of a mattress and to make meaningful comparisons with other mattresses is to make sure that the retailer or manufacturer you are buying from understands the importance of providing this information to their customers. Without it you would be making a blind purchase with no way to know the quality or likely durability of what you purchased. The quality of the materials is what will determine how long the comfort and support that you experienced in a showroom is likely to last (and loss of comfort and support is not covered by warranties). Of course the value of a mattress also depends on the price you buy it for and how it compares to other mattresses that use similar materials and with manufacturers who sell their mattresses through retail stores they can also vary widely. The brand of a mattress is just the name of the company that in essence puts the materials inside the cover in various ways.
A forum search on “Carolina Mattress Guild” or on “CMG” (you can just click each link) will bring up more information about them.
There is also a lot of “greenwashing” in the industry today as almost all the manufacturers try to capture the so called “green” or “natural” market but much of this information is also very inaccurate or misleading. You can read a bit more about this in post #2 here and much more yet in the posts and information it links to about the very confusing and controversial subject of what is really green, natural, safe, ecofriendly, and organic (and these can all have very different meanings). There certainly are healthier choices in mattress materials but once again it’s the materials and the real facts about them not the manufacturer that is important and each person may have a different answer to “how safe is safe enough for me?”
One of the most important parts of buying any mattress and one of the most reliable indicators of more knowledgeable retailers and salespeople are the ones who will provide you with all the details of every layer of their mattress and are able to educate you about the differences between them (see guideline #2 here). Without this … “quality” is just a meaningless word and you have no way of really knowing what you are buying and quite frankly the salesperson has no way of knowing the quality and value of what they are selling … no matter what marketing stories they may be telling you or which manufacturers label is on the mattress.
Phoenix