Pure Latex, no Bliss

[phoenix]

Hi crl2,

I also like your idea of a firmer topper – I do suspect that the Serenity/ Pamper on its own is too firm for us, and that we are just “going through” the 2" topper because it is just too soft. Even with the topper, the overall feel of the bed is that it is firm.

That’s often the case and one of the paradoxes of mattress design is that a softer topper (or comfort layer) can often feel firmer if it “allows” more of the firmness of the deeper support layers to “come through”. I hope the pillow helps. A body pillow can also help with rotational alignment because it can help prevent side sleepers from twisting part of their body away from pressure points too much and causing alignment issues.

We remain concerned about our experiences with PLB mattresses – I noticed that another poster also felt that the Serenity/ Pamper mattress he tried out in the Rockville MD store felt more plush that that in another store. This was our experience too; the in-store as well as the first model we had did not feel as firm as our current model. I am going to touch base with the Rockville store about this.

It would be interesting to hear there feedback or if other customers have had similar experiences. In most cases talalay latex is very consistent in its firmness level (ILD) so there would be little variation between mattresses (outside of the normal break in period which would cause some difference between newer and older mattresses) but there is always the chance that a batch of mattresses were made with the incorrect ILD of latex.

But between that and our experience with the first mattress not being level, I wonder is there is more variability going on than would be expected for different mattresses even of the same model. In retrospect, the specs for the Serenity/ Pamper should have clued us in that it would probably be too firm for us side-sleepers, but the store model and the first mattress we received just did not feel that way. It was a bummer to have to waste our warranty swap on some weird problem, only to then discover that our mattress choice was off.

If it’s a matter of the mattress breaking in then your mattress would eventually soften to a similar level to the floor model in the store (which may have been there for a while). There are also differences between different versions of the PLB Pamper (version 1, 2, and 3) Version 2 of the PLB specs are here and Version 3 are here. The Healthy Back models may be slightly different from both.

Phoenix