Mattress topper for new GS Stearns Luxury Firm mattress? Egg Crate

[Clay]

A list of beds I’ve purchased

Mattress Firm Direct Lisbon Eurotop (Oh man this was heaven with a 1.5-2" viscoelastic foam egg crate/memory foam type topper) - unfortunately I sold this when I moved and according to online specs, it has around 6" of memory foam?! I’m not sure why I found this bed so comfy, but I and everyone else loved it. Specs as below

Support Layer - Foam encasement, 460 foam encased unit, 2" insert foam, 1" support foam
Comfort Layers - FR Fiber, 1.5" ultra soft quilt foam, quilt backing, 1/2" Visco Memory Foam, 1" comfort foam

Sleepy’s Carolina Mattress Guild Radiant Plush Pillowtop - Immediately junk – way too soft exchanged almost immediately
Sleepy’s S&F Cora Luxury Plush (no pillowtop) - not comfortable – still had back pains exchanged again
Sleepy’s S&F Shantel Luxury Plush Eurotop - I decided to keep trying it being told I would be satisfied because it’s higher level quality than Cora – wrong. Back pain again

1 year later Sleepy’s allowed me to exchange again. I spent a whole weekend going to several different Sleepy’s and decided on another bed from the line. I was thinking that perhaps with the firmness and no pillowtop, I wouldn’t have a problem. The bed gave ample support and all the other beds just seemed to lack support or felt cheaply made.

Sleepy’s GS Stearns Luxury Firm. Specs as below
Soft knit cover with Silk, Indulge Quilt with Memory Foam, 1 .5″ layer of of 5lb Memory Foam, Deluxe Cotton and New Zealand Wool, 2′ Marvelux HD Foam, Individually wrapped Titanium Alloy Coil, Liqued Injected Foam Encased seamless edge.

It appears to have a significant amount of foam still 3.5", but I’m hoping this won’t be a problem because I am guessing this is less than what was in my previous S&Fs and it’s a bit firmer. (I’m still puzzled as to why I absolutely loved my Mattress Firm mattress that had 6" of foam in it supposedly). It was very firm when we first got it, but over the past 2 weeks it’s gotten noticeably softer. We are wondering right now whether to wait it out for it to soften more or to buy an egg crate topper. We bought a Costco Novaform gel 3" topper that we immediately disliked. It gave us a sinking feeling we didn’t like at all like a too-soft and too-thick Tempurpedic. I think for sure we need a 1.5"-2" topper if we need it. Maybe egg crate / cheap visco-elastic foam will give the feel I’m looking for? Although I’m not getting back pain with the GS Stearns Luxury Firm, I think I want something with a more springy soft feel like I had in the Mattress Firm bed - it almost feels like the foam within the mattress is too dense and firm underneath with not enough spring from the coils inside?

Any thoughts? Should I wait it out? Or should I get a topper and will it mimic a similar feel from the first bed mentioned? It has been agonizing to find a bed with the perfect feel. I’m not sure why that first bed did not give me problems as it supposedly has a significant amount of foam but perhaps I’m just sadly aging and getting more back pain. I would also like to note I do have a couple friends who have had absolutely no problems with S&F and this was the reason I decided to stick with the line.

Thanks.

[phoenix]

Hi Clay,

Mattress Firm Direct Lisbon Eurotop (Oh man this was heaven with a 1.5-2" viscoelastic foam egg crate/memory foam type topper) - unfortunately I sold this when I moved and according to online specs, it has around 6" of memory foam?! I’m not sure why I found this bed so comfy, but I and everyone else loved it. Specs as below

Support Layer - Foam encasement, 460 foam encased unit, 2" insert foam, 1" support foam
Comfort Layers - FR Fiber, 1.5" ultra soft quilt foam, quilt backing, 1/2" Visco Memory Foam, 1" comfort foam

You “loved” it because it was a good match for you in terms of PPP. Of course the ideal is that a mattress is a not only a good match for you but uses high quality, durable materials as well so that the mattress continues to feel and perform close to the way it did when it was new and has a useful lifetime that justifies the price you paid for the mattress. Both low and high quality materials can feel the same when they are relatively new but lower quality materials don’t maintain the way they feel and perform for nearly as long which is why it’s an important part of a mattress purchase to make sure you know the quality/density of all the layers and components in a mattress as part of the purchase process (which aren’t included in the mattress specs you listed).

Sleepy’s GS Stearns Luxury Firm. Specs as below
Soft knit cover with Silk, Indulge Quilt with Memory Foam, 1 .5″ layer of of 5lb Memory Foam, Deluxe Cotton and New Zealand Wool, 2′ Marvelux HD Foam, Individually wrapped Titanium Alloy Coil, Liqued Injected Foam Encased seamless edge.

There is actually more layers in this mattress than you listed. You can see the specs here …

Silk/Wool/Poly
1."  5lb Memory Foam
.5 oz Polyester Fiber
1" Reg Poly
2" Marvelux HD Foam
1.5" 5 lb Memory Foam
Liquid Injected Foam Edge
Intellicoil Id

The 5 lb memory foam is good quality and the Marvelux is “in the range” of good quality as well although it’s a little on the low side for a one sided mattress (I believe it’s 1.7 lbs) so there is about 1.5" of “suspect” materials (which is in the range that I would normally consider acceptable) and another 2" of foam that is “a little on the low side” (the Marvelux).

Any thoughts? Should I wait it out? Or should I get a topper and will it mimic a similar feel from the first bed mentioned? It has been agonizing to find a bed with the perfect feel. I’m not sure why that first bed did not give me problems as it supposedly has a significant amount of foam but perhaps I’m just sadly aging and getting more back pain. I would also like to note I do have a couple friends who have had absolutely no problems with S&F and this was the reason I decided to stick with the line.

The mattress appears to still be breaking in and changing over the first couple of weeks so I would probably wait a little longer until the “feel” has stabilized (perhaps another couple of weeks or until it doesn’t seem to be changing any more) before adding a topper.

I don’t know which topper would be closest to the “feel” you like because there are too many differences between the mattresses, too much missing information, and because feel is very subjective and each person can have a very different perception of the same mattress or mattress/topper combination. Your mattress is very different from the Lisbon and all the layers of a mattress can have an effect on how a topper or mattress/topper combination feels so the same topper may feel very different on different mattresses. The upper layers affect the initial “feel” more than the deeper layers though so since the top layers of the Lisbon were mostly softer polyfoam it would probably be worth trying to “approximate” the feel with a topper that was about 2" of a similar material (which you mentioned was convoluted polyfoam) to experiment with and see how close it comes. While it will probably be lower quality foam … the advantage of a topper like this is that it’s less costly to experiment with and can be easily replaced if your trial and error indicates it doesn’t work well for you or if it softens or breaks down fairly quickly over time. The topper guidelines in post #8 here may also be useful.

Phoenix