Plasmabed

Hi
There is a company here in Vancouver called Plasmabed http://www.plasmabed.com/en/index.html and claim that they have developed a revoulutionary product, however thay don’t actually give details on what it is made out of. They claim it is a latex blend of some sort which may be true and they call the foam Gelastic, which sounds to me like a latex/Gel memory foam combo. They are expensive and have little if any retail exposure here in there home base of Vancouver.
Any thoughts on this product would be helpful as I am on a mission to learn all about beds.
Thanks

Tempur-Pedic price with absolutely no specs of any kind, that’s a no brainer.

ighHi jege41,

Well … on first impressions the site seems to have a lot of hype and misinformation but little substance. The first warning sign is on the home page where it says “natural memory foam” which more than anything reminds me of some of the claims made by Essentia (see this thread and this thread). There is absolutely no information on the site about the material itself but it’s clear here that it is just memory foam of some type.

There is just no stretch of the imagination where memory foam can legitimately be called a natural material. Even if it uses plant oil based polyols to replace some of the petrochemical polyols (see this post along with this article) … the remaining polyols and the isocyanates and other chemicals used to make it are petrochemical based and even the plant oil polyols (with a few exceptions) have to be chemically altered to be useable as a chemical to make memory foam so they can hardly be called natural either.

I don’t see anything on the site about Gelastic but if this is one of the ingredients in their mattress then this is a solid gel polymer material trademarked by edizone that is used to make the Intellibed buckling column gel. You can see more about this in post #5 here.

Did they tell you that the mattress contained Gelastic … and if they did I wonder why there is no mention of it on the site?

Either way … they didn’t develop it (Edizone did) and even though the gelastic itself is a high quality material (whether it’s used as buckling column gel or as another type of gel layer) … it is only one layer in the mattress … it’s not the “natural” memory foam they talk about … and knowing the details of all the other layers of their mattresses is just as important as it would be with any other mattress.

I would approach this with real caution and would need much more information to make any real assessment about their mattresses.

Phoenix

Thanks again Phoenix
I pulled the trigger on the Sleep Science latex tonight so all other bets are off for now.
I’m expecting it to be quite firm which I like to a degree so for now my research will be looking for an appropriate topper to soften it up a little if need be. Im sort of thinking would I want to stink up the latex with memory foam or spend a little extra and get a squishy talalay topper?
Cheers
John

Hi jege41,

Congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

It seems to me like reasonable value for a latex/polyurethane hybrid at their sale price.

Did you happen to find out any details about the type of latex (it seems from the description here that it’s blended Dunlop but they don’t say the synthetic/natural blend percentage) or the density of the polyfoam base? It would certainly be great to know.

I did see some information that it uses a 2" layer of 19 ILD dunlop and another two" layer of 24 ILD Dunlop and then the base foam is 1.8 lbs but the feedback seems to indicate that it is very firm and this may indicate that the ILD’s of the comfort layers are not correct.

I hope you have a chance to let us know how it works out once you’ve received it and have a chance to sleep on it for a bit.

Phoenix

We recieved the Sleep Science 10" latex a couple of days ago so I have had a few sleeps on it to date.
Firstly it is a very firm Dunlop with very little movement or bouncy feel.
It has only expanded to 7" so far and is advertised as a 10" mattress.
The box that it was shipped in was in rough shape however the mattress was well protected in clean and spotless condition.
We are going to give it 30 days to see if we can adjust to the firmness that it provides and wil update then.
John

Hi jege41,

Thanks for the feedback on the sleep Science.

There have been many others that talked about how firm it was and I think the pattern is clear enough that it would probably be fair to say that most people would find it firm.

This would concern me. Normally polyfoam and latex should come back to its intended height very quickly (in most cases almost right away) and if it’s “short” by 3" this could indicate that it has been compressed for too long in shipping or storage and the foam may have been damaged.

If it’s been more than 48 hours (it would normally be fully expanded almost right away) then I would consider returning it rather than trying it out for 30 days.

Phoenix

Hi
The box that it was shipped in said 2010 on it so I could assume that the bed has been compressed for more than 3 years.

Hi jege41,

That would certainly be a reasonable assumption and if that was the case that would be enough to damage any foam. The law tag should also have the date of manufacture on it.

I would probably return it.

Phoenix

Yes the law tag does say 2010.
Would being compressed for that long attribute to being so darn firm?

Hi jege41,

This is very likely yes. The polyfoam and/or possibly the latex would have lost much of its resilience although I think that based on what I have read about it that it’s very firm anyway.

Phoenix

Hi Phoenix
It has expanded up a little and is now almost 9" and still is very firm and flat.
I think we will keep this mattress and add a topper as I think it could last a very long time.
Costco.ca has a 3" talalay topper for 449.00 http://www.costco.ca/Mattress-Topper-100%25-Latex-Talalay.product.10340593.html
I looked at the Ikea 1.5/8" Dunlop for 399.99 but falls almost 50% short of the thickness of the Costco talalay.
I would buy online except the prices really are not much better and to return is a real pain.
What do you think?
Thanks
John

Hi jege41,

The Costco Talalay latex seems like a good option to me. It’s likely made by Radium (who seems to have a bigger presence in Canada than Latex International) and is good quality.

Not only is it a good price for natural Talalay (or mostly natural) … it’s also refundable … and it has a nice cover which is important.

I would also choose this over the Ikea Dunlop latex topper any day :slight_smile:

Nice catch!

Phoenix

your da man!