Hi LookingNow,
There are really only two ways to know whether a material is safe enough for you (vs being safe enough for someone else).
The first of these is based on testing that identifies any harmful substances or VOC’s in a material.
The second is based on your own personal experience and history with certain materials.
Beyond this … there is really no way to quantify whether one material is “safer” than another one and decisions become a matter of “best judgement” or “risk management” based on your individual history, circumstances, and beliefs.
While the testing protocols used for latex (synthetic or natural) indicate that any harmful substances and VOC’s are “safe enough” for the large majority of people … those that are more sensitive or that have certain medical conditions may feel more comfortable choosing more natural materials over others as part of “risk management” even though there may be no evidence that a synthetic material would be harmful. This is where personal choices and how you feel “about” certain materials may be more important than whether they are actually harmful to you.
In very general terms and based on anecdotal evidence (which is not scientific) … the most likely foam material that some people may be sensitive to is memory foam followed by polyfoam followed by latex. There are many examples of people that have MCS that don’t have any issues with synthetic or blended latex but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are comfortable with the “idea” of having it in their mattress because there are many people who believe that all synthetic substances are more harmful than natural substances and whether this is actually correct is less important than how they feel “about” synthetic materials.
Different types of latex have a different “feel” and respond differently when you sleep on them and they also have different prices so for most people the choice between different types of latex is generally a preference issue or a cost issue. There is more about the different types and blends of latex in post #6 here and there is more about the differences between Dunlop and Talalay in post #7 here.
I’m not so sure that this would be a correct assumption because the only way to know which one was safer would be based on actual testing or personal experience. Rather than trying to decide which one may be “safer” for you which really isn’t possible to know … a more effective approach would be to decide whether either one would be “safe enough” for you. For most people … the answer would be that both are “safe enough”.
While there is justifiable concern with having certain harmful chemicals in mattress materials … for the most part the belief that “all chemicals” or “all synthetic materials” are harmful is not justified and there is little evidence to support it … at least as a blanket statement. These types of overly generalized beliefs can often lead to the need to make choices that are much more restrictive or may be much more difficult than they need to be. There are certainly some chemicals or synthetic materials that some people would choose to avoid because their history indicates that they are or may be sensitive to it or because there is more anecdotal evidence that some other people who are in similar circumstances or situations may be sensitive to it but for the most part the choice between natural and synthetic latex wouldn’t be an issue of safety and would be more about performance and “feel” and cost.
Phoenix