Hi,
We’re looking for suggestions for a non-toxic mattress. We tried the avocado green mattress with a soft topper but are finding that we have a two-fold issue. First, the latex is too firm. My husband and I are both side sleepers and while we find the sleep to be cooler than our former Leesa mattress, our hips hurt when we wake up (and this is after trying the mattress for 60+ days). We find ourselves rotating from side to side throughout the night because of discomfort on our sides (shoulders and waist/hip bone contact points are sore). The second issue is that the mattress does not have enough support to keep our body lines relatively level, so our backs are out of alignment. Other background info: we are both skinny folks, and weigh ~115lbs(female), ~145lbs(male) and average height.
What would you recommend for a non-toxic mattress that is supporting but not too firm that sore spots arise when side sleeping?
Hi sb1234. Thank you for your question. I would urge you to look at the Natural Escape mattress
It is also a certified organic hybrid latex mattress like the Avocado, but has a few differences. The first being that the spring unit has a more subtle lumbar region. While it is zoned like the avocado, the sleeping areas are firmer in this spring unit, and the difference between the lumbar region and the rest of the sleeping region is less pronounced. The mattress also had 3" of latex vs the 2" of latex in the Avocado. It sounds like you may still need a topper which we offer as well. The topper we offer is a 55D firmness while the Avocado I believe uses a 65D. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out here or directly to us.
I have tried the following:
Joybed LXP. Was fairly comfortable but returned because in two tries they couldn’t send a twinXL that was 80" long and neither mattress had the contents listed on the legal tag. One mattress had no smell. The second had a strong smell. They do not claim to be organic but natural. However, with no tag info who knows what is in the mattress. But I slept the best on this bed. It seemed to have minimal padding where you could feel the coils a bit so you would think this was bad but for me but I just moved around and it was comfortable. Says to have zoning but I couldn’t tell.
My Green Mattress Natural Escape. I was crippled by this mattress. The zoning in the center is super firm. My husband is sleeping on it and complains every day about how hard it is. We did buy the plush topper and that helps a bit but I will call this week to initiate a return. I would stay far away from any mattress that puts a hard zone under your hips as there is no way to align your spine in this scenario. Also the My Green Mattress Plush topper does not list any ingredients on the tag. They probably sent what they advertised on their web site but I still like a company that fills out their legal tags properly over one that just ignores them. The Natural Escape had no odor but the plush topper needed to be aired out a few weeks before use to reduce the latex smell.
Naturepedic EOS Classic with plush coils and soft microcoils. Fairly comfortable and no odor. But not as comfortable as the Joybed. However it seems to be better quality with more padding on top as I do not feel the springs underneath the padding. It to is short at 76" for a twinXL (supposed to be 80"). I am looking at their pillow top as an alternative. But I am getting very discouraged regarding the size. It is $200 more for a twinXL (we have adjustable bases to make a king bed) and you only get 1" longer than a regular twin. I hate the feeling of my feet hanging off the end but to avoid it my head has to hang off the end. However it seems to be a pattern that companies who advertise a twinXL don’t make them to standard sizes. I miss a true 80" mattress.
What I like about Naturepedic is that you have alot of different choices for the layers and can try them in the store. What I don’t like is the price is exhorbitant for what you get. Especially when they short the size of the mattress.
I’m going to go to the store to try the Pillow Top firm coils with the medium microcoils and then the soft microcoils. I tried the plush coils with the medium microcoils and the soft microcoils and found it too soft.
You weigh less than me so may like the Classic with the plush coils and soft microcoils. I find it supportive and weigh more than you. However, I’m also curious to try the Classic with the plush coils and the medium microcoils which I may do through their layer exchange program if I don’t pull the trigger on their pillow top. They also have various latex options but I am staying away from them due to getting tired of latex odor.
I’m also a lighter weight side sleeper looking for a latex mattress. Here are some other options you may want to explore in case you haven’t come across them yet:
(1) Nest Bedding’s Hybrid Latex. The latex in the softest version has an ILD of 19.
(2) Bloom Hybrid by Brooklyn Bedding
(3) Cedar Luxe by Brentwood Homes
(4) The EcoCloud by Winkbeds
i’m puzzled by your twin xl problems. i have noticed that mattresses and box springs tend to be about 1" smaller than their stated dimension, so a twin xl on naturepedic site would by this logic 79" or so. how is it that from 2 companies,you’re ordering twin xl mattresses but getting std twins. really odd.
i see that joybed doesn’t state their mattress dimensions that i could find, but doubt they would deviate from the industry standard other than the 1" oditiy noted above.
shrug.
on the naturepedic note… sucks that your mattress isn’t as comfortable as you had hoped.
Hey sb 1234,
Welcome to the TMU Forum 
! Good having you here and thanks for your question.
[quote]We’re looking for suggestions for a non-toxic mattress. We tried the avocado green mattress with a soft topper but are finding that we have a two-fold issue. First, the latex is too firm. My husband and I are both side sleepers and while we find the sleep to be cooler than our former Leesa mattress, our hips hurt when we wake up (and this is after trying the mattress for 60+ days). We find ourselves rotating from side to side throughout the night because of discomfort on our sides (shoulders and waist/hip bone contact points are sore). The second issue is that the mattress does not have enough support to keep our body lines relatively level, so our backs are out of alignment. Other background info: we are both skinny folks, and weigh ~115lbs(female), ~145lbs(male) and average height.
What would you recommend for a non-toxic mattress that is supporting but not too firm that sore spots arise when side sleeping?[/quote]
Thanks also to expert trusted member My Green Mattress for their quick response and suggestion of their Natural Escape mattress as an alternative to your Avocado Green Mattress, hope you found their thoughts helpful.
As there is quite a bit of confusing information available online about toxicity, safety and organic, there is more about the different types of organic and safety certifications such as Oeko-tex, Eco-Institut, Greenguard Gold, C2C, and CertiPUR-US in post #2 here, and more about some of the differences between organic and safety certifications in post #2 here and there are also some comments in post #42 here that can help you decide whether an organic certification is important to you for environmental, social, or personal reasons, or whether a “safety” certification is enough, and what those certifications can mean to determine whether the contents of any particular mattress are “safe enough” for you.
There are many choices of safe, natural and organic mattresses but it is always good to keep in mind that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and I would be cautious about using anyone else’s suggestions, experiences or reviews on a specific mattress (either positive or negative) as a reliable source of information or guidance about how you will feel on the same mattress or how suitable or how durable a mattress may be for you. In many if not most cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that would be a perfect choice for one person or even a larger group of people in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (even if they are in a similar weight range). This is different than a manufacturer comparing their products to a another products you are considering … “talk you through” the specifics of their mattresses and the properties and “feel” of the materials they are using (fast or slow response, resilience, firmness etc.) and the options they have available that may be the best “match” for you based on the information you provide them, any local testing you have done or mattresses you have slept on and liked or other mattresses you are considering that they are familiar with, and the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you. They will know more about “matching” their specific mattress designs, options, and firmness levels to different body types, sleeping positions, and preferences (or to other mattresses that they are familiar with) than anyone else. Post #2 here and this topic have more about the pros and cons of a local vs an online purchase.
Just curious, how are you coming along with your mattress shopping?
Cheers,
Sensei
I’m not sure if I should start this as a new post. I’m also looking for a non-toxic hybrid mattress, but can’t seem to find exactly what I’m looking for. I tried the Brooklyn Bedding Bloom, the soft version, and it felt great actually, but I ended up donating it because I found out the talalay in it is blended. For personal reasons, I prefer the most natural mattress possible. It doesn’t necessarily need to have organic certification.
Ideally I want:
zipper cover of knit organic cotton and wool
100% natural latex layer, either talalay or dunlop, but must have a soft option
coils not zoned (but firmer ones around the edge would be great)
no poly foams in it
I haven’t been able to find a mattress that meets my criteria. Arizona Premium Mattress Eco Sleep Hybrid might be an option, but I don’t want a bamboo cover. They have a cotton cover, but it seems like they are favoring their bamboo cover on their website, so not sure what the cotton one is like. I’ve been thinking about the Nest Bedding Hybrid, but there’s polyfoam quilting in the cover and then another inch of polyfoam down further in the mattress. I wish there wasn’t polyfoam quilted into the cover. I could deal with it being further down in the mattress, but I’m not sure why they put that between the cotton cover and the latex? They have an organic certified version without polyfoam, which would be great, but it has a woven cotton cover. I’m worried that the woven cover will restrict the latex in conforming to my body as I want it to. Latex tends to feel pretty firm to me, so I don’t want anything that will make it feel even firmer.
Any suggestions for a mattress that meets what I’m looking for?
I did a search with your desired criteria and found some possibilities, but most don’t include a zippered cover:
https://www.bludot.com/the-blu-dot-natural-hybrid-mattress.html
https://www.amorebeds.com/product/amore-natural-mattress
https://happsy.com/happsy-organic-mattress
https://sleepez.com/products/hybrid-latex-mattress
Not sure how important the zippered cover is to you, but these all seem to meet your other needs. Hope it helps and good luck with your search!
- Bill
BriannaM,
Naturepedic meets all your criteria and you and sub out layers so will never have a cratering problem like another poster wanted to avoid.
We have two of their mattresses in trial period. The EOS Classic with plush coils and soft microcoils and the EOS Pillowtop with firm coils, medium microcoils and soft microcoils. They have a zippered top so we are going to try different combinations of the coils. You can get latex instead of the microcoils. Look to see if there is a show room in your area to try them out. They are all organic.
Were next going to reconfigure the mattresses to try the plush coils with the medium microcoils and the firm coils with two layers of soft microcoils. Probably tomorrow night.
Unfortunately the first twinxl was only 76 inches so we emphasized that the second had to be 80 inches. It came in at 79 so we will live with it.
deuxcv,
I too am puzzled by the mattress sizes. They charge more for a twinxl and our old king and queen beds are actually 80" long. So why not the twinxl? Also for the price I’m paying for the Naturepedic I expect every inch to show up. But the best we’ve gotten so far is 79 inches.
I’m looking forward to trying your combo, plush coils with medium microcoils in the next few nights. It is no small feat to get them reconfigured so were going to try each combo for a couple of nights at a time.
i made some slats last week to put over an old box spring to try and figure out why there was a feeling like a high spot in my mattress, thinking it was because of an older box spring and thinking maybe the rigid center of the split king box springs was causing the ridge.
anyway… in researching buying slats and bunkie boards and then measuring the box spring for my diy slats i came to realize that all of these measured 1.5" less than what i knew a king to be… 76x80. so your 79" seems just about right. not sure why they were universally smaller than universally standard mattress sizes. maybe measurements at the middle of a mattress is a bit wider so they make the bottom a touch smaller. anyway, this must be a consistent thing based on all 3rd party stuff that was universally smaller than 76x80.
as for your first round, maybe they got mis tagged and thus mis shipped and they were really standard twin casements they sent. i say this might be the case because i suspected my original medium latex to be wrongly labeled and got in a bit of a spat with them(which we resolved), but never really got to the bottom of that because i ended up loving the microcoils more.
and this brings us to present day… my slats didn’t do the trick… still felt like my mattress had a lump after i installed my diy slats. flipped all the coils and support coils around (keeping in mind the brown stripes indicating outer edge of firmer coils for the edge) fearing maybe there was some mattress sagging starting so thought flipping everything might prove this. but i still felt a lump. finally took it all apart again opens the zipper on the support coils, took a peak inside the pockets at the actual coils coils and low and behold, found out that the cover over the support coils was on backwards so when assembled had a row of really firm coils right down the middle causing the stiffer feel all the way to the top. so kinda pissed that this was in wrong for 3 years, but relieved that the mattress has no sag and this totally resolved now. sooooooo… long story short, maybe there is some need to better quality control what’s going out their door.
Interesting! I think when we got the first twinxl there was no brown stripe indicating the firmer edge. But the second twinxl did have the brown stripe. I can check this when we take it all apart to reconfigure. How did you tell that the inner coils were the firmer support ones after you unzipped the main coils? I’m also going to double check the soft microcoils are soft and medium are medium (more firm) feeling when we take it apart.
I would prefer that for the twinxl it didn’t have support coils on one side of the twinxl so we could rotate them individually without putting a firm edge in the center.
that makes some sense to support the theory they sent you twins the first time. most buyers of twins are probably for kids and would probably have all four sides the same. and most buyers of twinxl’s are prob putting them together as a split king.
once i had the cover off i could tell by feel… both by compression feel and by feeling the gauge of the wire through the pla pocket. then i was so surprised by this discovery i slit it open a bit to see.
with or without the 4th side support, you should still be able to flip them about… head to toe, mattress to mattress. the microcoils don’t have any directionality so they can be flipped any which way. i’m flipping them around because of bad compression experience with past mattresses. i have no idea if modern coils and microcoils will compress unevenly/fatigue/sag over time if not slept on evenly. what i was fearing was some sag, now that it’s fixed there is no sign of sag.
I did check and the original twinxl did have the brown stripe. Forgot to check if the coils were actually firmer along that edge.
We are set up for tonight for plush coils with medium micro coils for my husband. I’m trying firm coils with soft microcoils and soft microcoils.
I was surprised that I couldn’t really tell the difference in the soft vs medium microcoils by feel. In the store I certainly could. I hope we really have what we think we have so when we order the last mattress (to replace the short one) we get what we are expecting.
curious to hear your findings. curious if you’ve found any benefit to the pillow top.
are you on an adjustable bed? i’ve been thinking of getting one. waiting to see if any new models come from ces or the big furniture show in vegas later in the booth before i buy. i’m a single king tho, not a split king.
Hello deuxcv,
Yes we are on an adjustable bed. If you are thinking about it and want one without toxic smells, I highly recommend the Lucid L100 2019 model. It is all metal so no plywood, particle board, foam or fabric that has been sprayed with chemicals. You have to get two twinXLs and then use the included cable to operate them together.
They only have the all metal in the 2019 model so I suggest ordering soon. The 2020 has other material in it. I really love ours.
We went through two other brands of adjustable beds before finding these. The other two had strong chemical odors that never disappated. After spending so much on an organic, odor free bed, you don’t want to ruin it with the adjustable bed frame. You can also order different leg heights directly through the company, and headboard brackets from Amazon.
I will let you know on the pillow top. Unfortunately due to us not really knowing what we are testing because components may be mislabeled, it makes the findings suspect.
Last night was a rough night on the firm with two softs. It was softer than the firm with a soft and a medium but seemed closer to the version in the store when I tried the firm with a soft and a medium. Also the soft microcoils from the short bed were about 6" shorter than the medium ones we took out so there is some serious fall off at the head and the foot of the bed. We inserted it at the second layer down but maybe shouldn’t have. That is the softest of the three microcoils. I’m suspicious that the other two are really medium, even though one is labeled as soft.
I wish I could post a photo because we put the new microcoils on top of the old while swapping them and I took a picture of the lengh difference.
Are there any physical stores in the Flint, MI that have mattresses with safety certifications such as Oekotex or Greenguard Gold? Neither the chain stores nor the couple independent places I’ve looked at seem to have any credentials, except for CertiPure, which doesn’t mean much. There are a couple places near Detroit, but that is too far to drive or get delivery. If anyone has any suggestions I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
everything you’re saying about the original twin makes it sound like it was a twin, not a twinxl as the tag said. sounds like someone in that phase of production is (and has been) asleep at the wheel. what does naturepedic have to day about it? i was in a similar state of frustration and finally cc:d the owner and overnight everything changed.
as for trusting what’s what… at least with the support springs it was fairly obvious by feel and totally obvious taking a peek, the thickness of the wire is visibly thicker in the firmer versions.
as for adjustable bed… i’m not too concerned about the construction. mattress and it’s proximity to body and face is one thing, but the frame, not as concerned about. i don’t have any sensitivities and i sleep with the window open year round and get plenty of air circulation. i wouldn’t like a never dissipating situation, but an initial wouldn’t bother me. my gut says to stick with leggett and plat which seems to be the leader in the industry. naturepedic used to have a detox’d adjustable frame made by reverie, but the cost was ridiculous and was ugly as all get out as it was upholstered in mattress cover material and no way to dress it up as one would do with sheets on a mattress.
DreamWalking,
I strongly suggest you take a road trip to the Chicago area and visit My Green Mattress’s showroom.
They have a GOTS and GOLS certified organic factory.
If you can find anything in their line up that works for you I think they are an excellent choice. We had their Natural Escape that while too hard for us, had no odor and was very well made. The problem for me was that they did not have a soft or plush option. My mother has been very happy with their Pure Echo, but she likes a firm mattess. I had a friend over too look at it out Natural Escape and she has since ordered a Kiwi with plush topper for herself. My uncle who has tried the Pure Echo at my mom’s is planning to order one for himself. I warned my friend off the Natural Escape because the coils in the center are very firm. I hope she likes the Kiwi.
Their price point for all organic is fabulous compared to what I am paying for the Naturepedic organic mattresses. For them, with coupon (search on-line for best discount code) a twinXL Kiwi is in the $500 range and the twinXL in Naturepedic Classic EOS is $2100 and then $3K ish for the Pillow Top. Naturepedic has a store in Denver so we were able to see them in person.
However if you can’t make a road trip they have very speedy shipping right to your door and a good return policy. We are in the process of returning ours and it was very easy to initiate. We are only waiting for the charity to pick up which unfortunately is scheduling out a few weeks.
deuxcv,
My experience with the smell issue may or may not affect your thinking on this. The first set of adjustable bases we bought was fully featured and around $3K. It smelled so bad that the first night we slept with the windows open in 40 degree weather. We tried opening the windows and running fans across them. Shortly we moved them outside to air out under a covered patio. After several days you couldn’t approach them without them causing burning in your lungs and nose. This was outdoors and not an enclosed area. So we initiated a return under their being unfit for their intended purpose as there was no return policy.
Second set we got from Sam’s club. Whew, they smelled. But I loved the features. We put them outdoors again, this time for 6 months. We have a covered patio area where they could get morning sun and then air out. 6 months later it was about to snow so we moved them into my office and closed the door. Next day went in and the whole room smelled like chemicals. Thankfully Sam’s club had a great return policy and they came to get them no problem. For the whole 6 months our mattresses were on the floor because we had gotten rid of the original foundation when the ‘white glove’ delivery service set up the first set of adjustable bases.
Changed our expectations on features and bought the all metal ones. To cover our bases we bought two brands. Both all metal ones had no odor at all. One went through a clearance cycle this past fall (I got one for my mom at $175!). The other brand is the LucidL100.
In our area ‘white glove’ means two grubby truck delivery guys with greasy unclean hand assembling your fabric encased beds. Not their fault as the boxes aren’t that clean and they have likely been installing things all day. So these sweaty, greasy guys are getting hand prints on your mattress if they take it off the bed and the fabric surrounding the new adjustable beds (although you can’t see it there because the fabric is generally a dark grey).
The all metal ones are so much more hygenic and chemical free. We are very happy with the ability to adjust the bed. It is a game changer and well worth the very small cost.
Apologies to all for my typos in all my responses. I see them later but can’t find a way to go back and edit the posts.