Need Help deciding a mattress

Hi HariS,

The best source for the mattress “quality specs” you need to know is generally the retailer that is selling the mattress (assuming that they are knowledgeable enough to know their importance in the first place which many aren’t) and they are the ones that should be finding out the specs for you through their reps. This isn’t something that a customer should need to “track down” by emailing or calling the manufacturer directly and in many cases a wholesale manufacturer isn’t set up to deal with direct customer enquiries and the reps for a retailer will often be able to provide information that isn’t available to consumers.

I treat “unknown” foam density in the same way as “low quality/density” materials because it’s the only safe assumption to make and if you haven’t confirmed the density of all the layers in a mattress from a reliable source without having to “translate it yourself” then I would avoid the mattress.

If the specs I listed in my last reply are correct then I would consider both mattresses to be a little below the minimums that I would normally suggest in terms of the quality and durability of the materials (although they would be better than most of the major brands).

In the case of the Enchantment there are 2" of foam that is less than 1.8 lb density which is “on the borderline” of the thickness where I would have some concern about durability and then the 2.25" of 4 lb memory foam underneath it is convoluted which would make it less durable than a solid layer of the same material (see post #2 here about convoluted foam). I would be cautious about this mattress although if you are in a lighter weight range it would probably be “just OK” but the durability and useful life of the mattress would be less than a mattress that used higher quality materials or had thinner layers of lower quality/density materials in the top layers of the mattress.

In the case of the Emerald Pillow Plush my comments would be similar. The top 2" are also less than the minimum 1.8 lb density I would normally suggest and 2" is also a little bit thicker than “about an inch or so” that I would normally use as the maximum amount of lower quality/density materials in the upper layers of a mattress (although they are slightly higher quality density than the top 2" in the enchantment) and the 1.8 lb polyfoam underneath this is also convoluted which would reduce its durability as well. The density of the layer underneath this is “unknown” but it’s probably either 1.8 lb or 2.0 lb polyfoam which meets the minimum density guidelines. Again this would probably be “just OK” if you are in lower weight ranges but would be less than I would generally suggest.

Phoenix