Hi, I ran across a company called my organic sleep and haven’t seen much if anything posted about them here or anywhere else. They seem to be selling 100% natural dunlop (still waiting for a response from them) but not much in the way of selection. Their specs seem a bit off since they’re saying medium 26-28ild is 5.5lb density and their extra firm 38-40 is 6.5lb density. Even for dunlop that seems pretty dense for those ratings. FSF has a chart listing Latex Green’s densities as being much less.
Does anyone know what the old single core dunlop mattresses were from back in the 50-60’s? Back then I think people used a lot firmer beds, so likely they might’ve been firmer than I can imagine. I was tossing around the idea of a medium 6" slab as the core and though 26-28 sounds a bit too soft the extra firm is way too firm for my taste.
Of the mattresses I tested, the two that felt the best were the PLB nutrition and the savvy serenity 9" dunlop (soft/med/firm). Both of these to me felt a lot firmer than what I’m used to. The PLB pamper felt way too firm to me, I can only assume I was going through the 2" soft top and feeling too much of the 40ild core. The Nutrition uses a slightly softer core and 5" in the top vs 2" but the 28ild directly on top felt pretty firm in terms of surface feel. The difficulty with the serenity is not knowing much about the layers other than general soft/med/firm. They didn’t have a soft/med/med to try, the other side of the bed was firmer yet at med/med/firm. So far I’ve gathered latex is just an all around firmer bed.
Typically 5" (like in the Nutrition) would end up providing a lot of the support wouldn’t it? Obviously the core plays a role, but most of any “sinking in” (if you could call it that, I doubt I sunk more than an inch laying down on it) would happen along the upper layers and 27ild/19ild 5" thick that didn’t occur (I didn’t dip through those 5" and ‘hit’ the core like I did with the Pamper). Taking this into consideration, would a medium dunlop still be risky as a core? With 3" 28 talalay over top of it? What I see in typical constructions are mid to high 30’s ild talalay or low to mid 30’s dunlop (because it’s more supportive/denser it would stand to reason they balance out) - but both of these beds felt quite firm to me, taking away any sensation of springiness differences between talalay or dunlop, they were solid. Barely budged even a few inches if that even sitting on the edge (vs sleeping). The Nutrition felt slightly softer, which I can attribute to the talalay, thicker layers etc - but even with a soft middle layer (2" of 19 ild), it was also on display with the latex enhanced foundation which adds another 4" of softer latex beneath it. Had it been the 36 ild base directly on a slatted foundation with no give, I’m sure it would have firmed it up even further. For my personal taste, either could have been a touch softer but at the same time I don’t want to risk alignment issues.
Considering a DIY approach, I’m thinking either dunlop or talalay will need something to take the edge off the surface of the latex for my preference, even if it’s thin. I don’t want to lose the support of the latex, so thinking maybe 1" of memory foam and 1" soft continuous pour dunlop or something. I guess what I’m striving for is the support of latex (that part I like, the solid feel) minus the hardness. After reading tons of other people’s posts and what they’re happy with I have to assume I’m the odd man out since the Nutrition and Serenity felt just the softer side of a wooden plank to me. Both of them (barely) had enough give to fill in the gaps of my lower back lying on my back - and I tend to lay/sleep on my side about 50-60% of the time which wasn’t overly comfy on either of those. Too much pressure on my hips and shoulder. The firm innerspring hotel bed I slept on out of town recently didn’t thrill me either and I couldn’t fall asleep on it until I was dead tired. Is it possible to go ‘softer’ and still be supported straight for alignment? I know that a topper can be used, but at some point it gets out of control - such as the Nutrition, 11" of latex in the mattress, 4" in the foundation, add a topper and now there’s 17-18" of latex - and would end up putting me 7-8" above the core support which almost negates its’ purpose being so deeply buried.