Hi joy.cheri,
Thanks for the heads up … and I’ve removed them from the list. They were one of the better options in the area so it’s unfortunate that they’ve closed.
I don’t keep a record of the individual mattresses or their specs that the retailers and manufacturers in the hundreds of forum lists throughout the forum carry on their floor or have available online (it would be a bigger job than anyone could keep up with in a constantly changing market) but checking their websites and making some preliminary phone calls to the retailers/manufacturers that are on the local lists is always a good idea before you decide on which retailers or manufacturers you wish to deal with anyway. This will tell you which of them carry mattresses that would meet your specific criteria, are transparent about the materials in their mattresses, and that carry the type of mattresses that you are interested in that are also in the budget range you are comfortable with. Once you have checked their websites and/or talked with the ones that interest you then you will be in a much better position to decide on the ones that you are most interested in considering or visiting based on the results of your preliminary research and conversations.
If you have never tried latex then it would certainly make some sense to test some latex mattresses locally (assuming that there are some) just to make sure you prefer the “feel” of latex compared to other types of materials and mattresses.
There is also more about the pros and cons of an online purchase vs a local purchase in post #2 here and this topic.
The only reliable way to to assess the “safety” of different materials in more general terms is based on lab tests and the certifications they have for harmful substances and VOCs so that you have some assurance than the VOCs are below the testing limits for the certification (see post #2 here for more information about some of the more reliable “safety” certifications). If the materials in a mattress or the mattress itself has a reliable “safety” certification then for most people they would certainly be “safe enough” … regardless of the type of material or the name of the manufacturer on the label.
The most common fire retardant method in the industry is inherent fire barriers which don’t use “chemicals” to pass the fire regulations. There is more general information about fire barriers in post #2 here and the two posts it links to at the end.
Phoenix