I probably wouldn’t try to approximate the Beautiful if I only had 9" of latex to work with or at least my expectations of success would be relatively low. I would personally focus more on building a mattress that was a good match for me in terms of PPP rather than a good match for another mattress which may turn out not to be the best choice for you anyway. I would also “expect” that my first combination would probably need some fine tuning so I would treat the initial combination as just one step in the process.
If I wanted to “try” anyway I would probably start with using the same layers as the top 9" of the Beautiful (3" of 15 ILD Talalay GL fast response, 3" of 24 ILD blended Talalay, and 3" of 36 ILD blended Talalay) with a knit cover although it would be difficult to duplicate the effect of their fire barrier which would have a significant effect on the feel and performance of the mattress. Once I had slept on this combination for a while (a minimum of a week or two) then I would use my experience on the mattress as a reference point to help me decide on the type of changes to make to “fine tune” the mattress and bring it closer to my design goals (which again if it was me would be the best “match” in terms of PPP rather than trying to match the Beautiful).
So I’m looking at bedgear brand protectors. Specifically the stretchwick and the dritec 5.0 depending on which gives least effect on feel. Do you know anything about this brand? They are one of those “performance sheet” type brand. I don’t know how much these performance fabrics would affect feel or breathability I’m also going to call them. http://www.bedgear.com/shop/protectors/mattress-protectors.html
I don’t have any personal experience with the protectors you mentioned so I wouldn’t be the best source of information about either of them regarding how they feel or perform other than saying they are both in the “thin membrane” category of mattress protectors that are discussed in post #89 here.
In talalay does does either natural or synthetic have an obviously more resilient feel that pushes back more or less? Or is it mainly ild that affects pushback?
There is more about the differences between blended Talalay and all natural Talalay in post #2 here. In an apples to apples comparison (where all the layers were the same ILD) most people wouldn’t feel any difference in a single layer but some people would feel a difference if a whole mattress was made of one vs the other (although many still wouldn’t).
“Pushback is somewhat of a misnomer because when you are lying on a mattress all the downward and upward forces are in equilibrium and there isn’t a “direction” of the forces involved (your body “pushing down” or the material “pushing up”). The resistance of a material is a combination of the ILD which measures the force it takes to compress a 6” latex core by 25% of its thickness (or 1.5" ) and compression modulus which measures how much firmer the material becomes with deeper compression after that (between 25% compression and 65% compression which is 3.9") but with foam materials the compression curve isn’t linear and is in more of a banana shape (see here).
What you actually “feel” when you are lying still on a mattress is the varying pressure against different parts of your body (which us usually measured in hhmg).
Latex is also very resilient (which is measured by dropping a steel ball on a material and measuring how high it bounces) and this is also connected to the feeling of “pushback” that some people describe. Materials that have more resilience store more of the energy of compression and less of the compression forces are absorbed (called hysteresis) but you can only feel resilience when you move on a mattress (vs lying still) and feel the “bounce” or “spring” of the material. Steel springs for example are the most resilient mattress component because they absorb less of the energy of compression and “store” more of the compression forces than foam materials (including latex).
Ok that did help. Can you elaborate some on what you mean when you say natural is more elastic (its more stretchy or what is meant by elastic) has more of the properties that latex is sought after for. I think you said that in one of your articles. I’m at work so can’t get all the info I want to as I kind of have to rush or else I’d quote exactly what you said so sorry if I’m misquoting you.
