Long time reader, first time poster. Phoenix, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were three people and this was your full time job.
The short of it is this,
My fiancé and I are in the market for our first bed together. After trying dozens of different mattresses we have settled on a Eurotop feel. Both of us have come to realize we can’t get quite comfortable on an all latex or an all memory foam even with generous comfort layers; we’ve nearly fallen asleep more than once on a Eurotop in the store.
After reading these forums up, down , and sideways I am leaning towards buying the innerspring and ordering a high quality Talalay topper from one of this site’s recommended suppliers. I have a hard time convincing her this is the way to go because she’s not so interested in the details in density, thickness, etc… she just would like to have something she knows to be comfortable.
By ordering the topper we save half on the price of the mattress and increase its longevity significantly, but we only have 3 weeks to do this before we’ll need to put it to good use. For that reason, it seems incredibly risky buying something that may not at all work for us and not having any backup in case it’s not comfortable.
My question: How has your experience been ordering something you have not tried? Did you end up liking it or did you need to return it for something different?
I wish I was 3 people … I would probably get more sleep than I do! It’s more than a full time job though and my typical day between research, responding on the forum, and talking to people is about 16 hours a day 7 days a week
I would keep in mind that there is no standard “Eurotop” feel because it would depend entirely on what was inside the Eurotop. If you had your eyes closed you wouldn’t be able to tell much difference between some tight tops and some Eurotops depending on the design and the type and firmness/softness of the layers. All a Eurotop means is that the foam on top is enclosed inside it’s own compartment but like any other mattress design there are an endless number of Eurotops that have different thicknesses, softness levels, and types of foam in the Eurotop and in the other layers and components of the mattress under the Eurotop. If you were to look at one thing that “most” (but not all) of them have in common is that they use thicker layers of softer foam in the comfort layers. I would also keep in mind that there aren’t any “all memory foam mattresses”. Most manufacturers wouldn’t produce that type of design because memory foam is only suitable for comfort and transition layers and isn’t really suitable as a support layer in a mattress.
You are certainly correct in your comments. A topper can add to the durability of the layers underneath it and it also has the advantage of being able to replace it without having to replace the entire topper and in some (but not all) cases it can be less costly than the same materials that are all inside the mattress itself. A mattress/topper combination would be more like a pillowtop than a eurotop though because like a pillowtop a topper can “act” a little more independently and feel softer compared to having the same materials inside the mattress itself. There is more about this in this thread and in posts #3 and #4 here.
The challenge of course when you are choosing a topper is that it’s more risky because you can’t test the combination in person. I would also be aware that the mattress underneath a topper can have a significant effect on how the topper feels so the same topper on different mattresses will feel different. All of these types of choices would be part of each person’s personal value equation where you are comparing the tradeoffs between different options you have available to you. In this case you would have a higher risk vs a lower price. When you are deciding on a topper when you haven’t tested the combination in person then the exhange or return policy may also be an important part of your choices so you have some “backup” if you make a topper choice that is less than ideal for you.
My experience may not be indicative of someone else’s experience because I have a fairly good sense of what different combinations will feel like to me after spending hundreds of hours testing different combinations of materials and mattresses and thousands of hours talking with many retailers along with manufacturers that design their own mattresses. Having said that, even the best mattress designers (and I’m not one of these since I don’t sell mattresses although I have spent time talking with manufacturers about designs they are considering) are often surprised at what certain combinations end up feeling like in “real life” vs how “theory” told them they thought it would feel.
The closer you can come to something you have tested in person (including all the layers and components of the two "sleeping systems’ you are comparing) the more likely it will be similar in feel and performance to what you tested but predicting how something that you aren’t familiar with will end up feeling is as much an art as a science because there are so many variables involved including some seemingly smaller variables such as the type of fabrics used in the cover and quilting of the mattress.
The “best” approach is to talk with the suppliers of the mattresses and/or toppers you are considering and then after your conversations to ask yourself how confident you are about how a particular combination will feel to you (regardless of how it may feel for someone else) and if your answer is “I’m not very sure” then I would make the return or exchange policies a bigger part of your choice.
If you do decide to go in this direction because the benefits are more important to you than the risk then it may be worth considering buying the mattress first (making sure there are no “weak links” in the mattress) and then using your own personal experience on the mattress along with post #2 here and the topper guidelines it links to as a guideline for the type, thickness, and softness of a topper that you believe would be closest to what you are looking for on the specific mattress you purchased.
