Memory Foam Mattress Topper 101

Mattress Talk Additional Components & Accessories
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Hi! I’ve been primarily sleeping on memory foam mattress toppers, mostly on the floor - for the past 15 years.

I bought a 3 inch memory foam topper at that time from Costco, which was great. Using it on my carpeted floor was the most comfortable “bed” I’ve ever had.

I recently bought two others (a random one with good reviews on Amazon, and a Sealy one from BJs Warehouse) hoping for the same thing, and they are both much weaker/softer/less substantive. In other words, there is very little resistance when you push down on them. Your handprint disappears after one second. They are more like regular foam, not memory foam. More airy. I use them on the floor, and when you lay on them, you sink down pretty readily and feel the floor.

This was not the case with my old one. That one - especially if it was cool - was pretty firm, but really comfortable to lay on.

I’ve been searching online trying to find something like that old one I got from Costco (I unfortunately don’t remember what brand it was), but no luck. Apparently even top brands like Tempurpedic have changed their material for the worse.

I read a few threads here, and lots of reviews/Q&As on Amazon, and have learned about specs like firmness, density, and ILD, but I’m not sure how these translate into real world feel and performance.

I’ve seen many recommendations to get memory foam with a higher density, like 5 or more, but I can’t find a single mattress topper on Amazon with that spec! Actually, almost none of them even list their density.

The only one meeting that requirement I’ve been able to find at all is from The Foam Factory/Foam By Mail - they have a 5lb density topper available in both 3in and 4in thickness for under $200 - but that company seems to have mixed reviews.

My questions are:

  1. What specs am I looking for to get a more firm, gel-y, comfortable, supportive memory foam topper? How does density relate to ILD in terms of actual feel?

  2. My old topper was 3 inches, but 4 inches sounds like it might be better. Any reason not to go with a 4 inch?

  3. Where should I look to buy?

Thanks!

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Hi Batreus.

Welcome to our Mattress Forum. :slight_smile:

If your BMI is within a healthy range for your height, you could likely get away with a topper with as little as a 3 lb foam density.

Most of the time, this is because they know they have a cheap product and want to keep that away from the eyes of educated consumers. You may find this GhostBed topper potentially to your liking.

Indeed. It can become quite the hot-topic on the forum. I don’t have any personal experience with them, but many have had perfectly reasonable experiences with them (and others have had quite the opposite).

If you’re using the topper as your bed, the 4" is perfectly reasonable and there’s really no reason not to. If you’re using it atop an already thick mattress, questions about keeping your alignment may be worth considering.

I know you’re asking where here - but if you’re using this topper as your bed, have you considered going the shikibuton route? As for where, hopefully others who’ve had success with memory foam toppers will chime in with their experiences and thoughts.

NikkiTMU

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Hi, thanks for the info.

I have been doing more research, and shockingly, I cannot find a single memory foam mattress topper on the internet with a listed density of more than 3.5, IIRC, other than the Foam Factory one.

Most of them don’t list the density, including the GhostBed one you linked as far as I can see.

I watched all the top memory foam topper videos on youtube, and clicked thru every link listed for the reviewed products, and the few which list the density were 3.5 or less. One was like 1.7!

I’ve never heard that word before. I googled it - it sounds like it’s a kind of Japanese futon which is firmer than western futons? I have tried futons before. I’ve found sleeping on memory foam toppers to be more comfortable than anything else I’ve tried.

Two questions:

  1. What can you tell me about exploring local options? (I’m in a major US city.)

  2. I’m still in the dark about density vs. ILD. How do these two specs translate into real world feel, and how do they relate to each other?

Strangely (to me), Foam Factory’s 3lb density memory foam is listed as “medium feel” and has an ILD of 15, their 4lb MF is also listed as “medium feel” and has an ILD of 14, while their 5lb MF is listed as “soft feel” and has an ILD of 12.

In other words, as the density goes up, the ILD goes down…

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Very few, if any, make the slow and dense memory foam any longer. I believe what you’re after is the more closed cell memory foam, which felt almost like pizza dough to the hand. Most companies have switched over to exclusively open cell, which acts more like your average polyurethane foam, yet they still call it memory foam, go figure. I think this was done because many people complained of the heat the closed cell foam produced, although to me it was the better of the 2 types for pressure relief, was a catch 22 I suppose, heat/pressure relief. I’ve tried close to a dozen memory foam toppers ( including foam factory’s) hoping they would have the classic memory foam feel and was disappointed with them all. Maybe the closest thing you could find is the Temper- pedic Supreme topper, as it seems “slower” than the rest, just from my observation. Another option you might want to try is 2 or 3 inches of the densest memory foam you can find in combination with a medium dunlop ( not talalay) topper. I find that the less lively feel of the dunlop and sheer density, 4.7 pound, makes up for the decreasing density of the memory foam, and blends nicely together. So you could to something like 2 inches dunlop, plus Temper Pedic topper. Amazon offers returns if it doesn’t work out. This will prevent you from bottoming out to the floor. Hope this helps.

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Hi GG, thanks for your great response.

Which Foam Factory topper did you get? (density & thickness)

How did it compare to the Tempur Supreme?

I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to feel the Tempur Supreme. It was better than the cheaper one they had there, but still didn’t feel like my old one. Which is somewhat surprising given the premium Tempurpedic brand, and my old one being whatever they sold at Costco 15 years ago (less expensive than Tempurpedic).

I wasn’t familiar with dunlop. I looked it up. Looks like a type of latex (which I have heard a lot about in my search). I can only find one mattress topper on Amazon with dunlop in the title. Maybe it’s a feature that only gets listed in the specs normally. I’ll have to look deeper into it.

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I had the foam factory 5 pound memory foam. Yeah, to me it just didn’t have that slow dense feeling. I believe they send out samples if you’d want any. I’ve never actually had the Temper Supreme topper, just tested out the “hand feel” in Costco. There has been some speculation on another bedding forum that Temper has decreased the density and formula of their topper,( they weighed it) maybe in response to the difficulty in getting polymers during the ongoing pandemic and it’s affect on the supply chain. Two or 3 people also complained the topper isn’t what it used to be, and one had actually found the weight of the new topper came out to be 2.4 pound foam, which is disappointing to say the least, for the amount of money they charge. I’ve also had a Plushbeds 5 lb memory foam topper. That one didn’t have the slow response either, but it was heavy, so you could tell it was 5 pound. Every company I’ve talked to, said they had moved to open cell “faster” foams. Some pillows are still made with the more closed cell variant though.

If you look up a company called Sleep on Latex on Amazon, ( or their own site) they have soft, medium and firm dunlop toppers. That’s who I ordered from. My theory is if you wanted to lessen the dependence on the quality of your memory foam, the latex underneath could make up for some of the depth and characteristics of feel. I’ve blended memory foam with many other kinds of foam, and thought dunlop was the best. Of course this is my subjective view, but with the return policies it’s no risk anyway.

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Yeah there is a lot of this talk about the Tempur Supreme on its Amazon page. How the quality and density decreased etc. I think going back before the pandemic IIRC.

Thanks for the Sleep on Latex reference. I looked up their products. Interesting.

It’s really crazy that it’s so hard to find a memory foam mattress topper like the ones from 10-20 years ago.

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I am in the same boat. I have a DIY foam bed that I assembled a few years ago. It’s five inches of ILD 35 polyfoam as the support layer, 2 inches of ILD 22 soft latex, then I have 2 inches of 5 pound memory foam from the Foam Factory, on top of that. A 1 inch memory foam gel topper over that.

The three inches of memory foam comfort layer has lost much of it’s firmness, so although is good for pressure relief, it’s not really supporting my low back. When you push on it, it bottoms out onto the latex layer almost instantly.

Because of this I 'm looking for some high quality 5lb density memory foam in the Queen size by 2 inches or 3 inches thick.

Today I did a little bit of research and shopping. I talked to someone at a Tempur-Pedic store and they told me that the Tempur-Pedic supreme topper has indeed been reformulated. It’s now apparently softer than it was before. On Reddit and on Amazon there are comments that the new version is really just cheap memory foam and does not have that slow and heavy feeling of the original Tempur-Pedic foam.

Not sure how to find high quality memory foam. It seems like pretty much everyone has gone to low density memory foam at least the vendors who sell separate pieces of foam. There is no real point in replacing soft memory foam with equally soft memory foam.

So here’s my questions:

  1. Is there any vendor who still sells high quality 5 pound density memory foam in two and 3 inch layers?

  2. If this is impossible to find, then would the Nolah AirFoam topper which is a 2 inch topper that comes in plush or firm be a good substitute? Has anybody had experience with this particular topper?

  3. Alternatively, if I wanted a comfort layer which would replace the older foam factory 2 1/2 inch thick memory foam layer in my bed, what would be something similar in latex? Would be Dunlop or would it be Talalay? What ILD would I need to get?

  4. Has anyone purchased the Tempur-Pedic supreme topper directly from Tempur-Pedic in the last month or two? From rumors and reviews on Reddit it seems that they may have reformulated the Tempur-Pedic supreme topper to be more of a traditional memory foam and much less firm. I also spoke to a salesperson at one of the Tempur-Pedic stores and they also told me that the newer formulation of this topper is softer. Unfortunately it’s an hour round-trip to see it in a store, so if anyone has a recent experience that would be very helpful.

Since I like the feel and the firmness of the older Tempur-Pedic foam, my ideal replacement for my current memory foam would be this topper from Tempur-Pedic but only if it actually has that dense and slow response feeling.

Thanks for the help. I absolutely hate bed shopping so that’s why have always enjoyed the DIY approach. The other advantage is that when layers don’t work out I can either donate them or sell them, and not have to jump through all the hoops of returning a commercial bed.

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I found the Tempurpedic Pro-Support at Bed Bath and Beyond and slept on it last night. It’s the same as the Tempur Supreme from Tempurpedic. Very nice! It is a high-quality dense memory foam with that sink into and still get support feeling. Turned my dying DIY foam bed into quite a nice bed. I also compared the Costco Tempurpedic topper, which is very low quality, and feels like low density cheapo memory foam.

Tempur is having a 40% off sale this weekend. Makes the Queen size about $250. Still pricey, but probably worth it.

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Hey Android, thanks for the info. How’s the Tempurpedic holding up?