Natural Talalay vs Blended Talalay vs Dunlop at the same ILD?

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

I’m selecting layers, and it’s hard to image what to pick. The differences I see describe seem like it would affect the ILD, which is the force required to compress a foam sample by a certain percentage of its original thickness. So how do you imagine the difference if they’re all the same ILD?

Maybe the difference is in the buoyancy and the force required to move back the indentation object. It may take the same pressure to indent, but natural will keep pushing back afterwards, vs Dunlop would not, and blended somewhere in between. So the force to return the indentation would be less for the all natural, and most for dunlop.

Would that be an accurate description of the different materials at the same ILD?

2

Hi looking4mattress,

I am not quite understanding your question.

When the ILD is measured for a foam, the general method is to measure the force it takes to compress the block of foam, depressing the 4" block 25% of its thickness or 1".

“ILD, or Impression Load Deflection, is a measure of the softness or firmness of a foam mattress. ILD is measured by pressing a 12-inch round disk into a 4-inch piece of foam until it presses 25% or one inch into the mattress surface. The amount of weight or pressure required to compress the mattress to that extent is the ILD.”

ILD is measured by taking a 15 inch by 15 inch by 4 inch section of foam and measuring the force in pounds that it takes a 50 square inch circular plate to compress the material 25 percent of its thickness. If a foam section requires 36 pounds of pressure to reach 25 percent compression, it has an ILD value of 36

There is also a secondary measurement which is not often talked about which is the amount of force needed to compress the foam at 65% of its thickness. This leads to yet another measurement called the support factor.

Support Factor also known as Compression Modulus. Typically, the more difference between the 25 percent ILD and the 65 percent ILD, the more ability the foam has to support weight. The ratio of the 65 percent ILD divided by the 25 percent ILD is called the foam’s support factor. Support factors for foam range from about 1.5 to 2.6.

Talalay processed latex results in a more uniform distribution of the density of the foam whereas Dunlop processed latex results in a block of foam where the density at the bottom of the block is higher (as the particles/sediment sink to the bottom in the process) than the density at the top of the block. This is why Dunlop is said to be “bottom heavy” and it support factor will be higher than Talalay .

The difference between Talalay and Dunlop is often described as sponge cake vs pound cake. Talalay is also described as being bouncier.

You will get some purists that will insist you have to measure the force in newtons, blah blah blah, and that is technically true, but we are trying to keep it simple and understandable.

Hope this clears things up.

Maverick

1 Like
3

Thanks the detailed response

So it would like in terms of support factor all natural talalay would be slightly greater than blended talalay. And then dunlop would be much greater than both? If they were all the same ILD

4

Dunlop will have a higher support factor than Talalay, I would not say “much” higher. Remember, when you say the “same ILD” this is referring to the measurement at the 25% compression point.

Blended and Natural Talalay will have slightly different textures and “stickiness” here are a couple of articles and information on blended and 100% natural latex

Talalay Global

Another article on Talalay, Blended and Dunlop

Consider that Dunlop and Talalay are the processes used to create each type of latex. Processes and the minimal additives can vary between manufacturers.

1 Like