Repair or Replace Pure Bliss Beautiful mattress

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Hello all, I’m a new member needing some advice/direction. I’ve been reading some posts out here and I believe I’ve come to the right place.
I’ve been a happy sleeper on a queen size Pure Bliss Beautiful mattress for almost 8 years. I’ve loved the feel of the mattress from day one, until a few months ago.The foundation consists of 18 mahogany slats spaced an inch apart on top of an Amish storage bed, so these slats will never sag. I called the manufacturer of the mattress prior to cutting/installing the slats to get their blessing before I proceeded.

Unfortunately, I’ve been sleeping solo for awhile now and when I wake in the morning I find myself in the center of the mattress. The mattress seems to have a dip/sag in the center. I’ve tried to measure it, it’s close to 3/4", but it feels worse than that. Every morning when I wake, my old back is getting sore, so I realize it’s time to do something.

In doing some research, I found that this mattress consists of three layers:
3" 15 ILD Talalay
3" 24 ILD Talalay
6" 36 ILD Talalay
All blended Talalay from Talalay Global I wasn’t aware they used blended Talalay latex until now.

My first questions for you folks:
I flipped the mattress yesterday, I figured I’d sleep on it for a few nights and try to figure out if the dip/sag is just in the top layer, or in each layer. Does this make sense, or am I way off here?
If I find that the top layer is the cause of this dip/sag, can I cut the top layer off and then replace it with a new topper? Unglued of course.

Or perhaps this is a common issue, it’s the foundation, the top, or all three layers?

Thanks in advance to all that reply.

2

JohnnyMac,

Sorry to hear about the problem you’ve encountered with your latex mattress. While I don’t have all of the answers I think I can shed some light on a few of the issues which you might find helpful. First regarding the use of blended Talalay latex that shouldn’t be a concern for you. Many latex experts find that blended Talalay latex is actually more durable than all natural despite being less expensive. I recently saw it estimated to have about 10% better durability on a relative basis. If the layers of your Pure Bliss mattress are glued it can be difficult to separate the individual layers to reuse some in a revised configuration. There may be some others here who could address possible ways this may be able to be done but unfortunately I don’t have that knowledge.

It is most likely that the softening or sag in the latex would be primarily in the upper layer(s) since they are under the most compression from use as well as being softer. Softer latex is more likely to suffer from a loss of its resiliency, and since it’s in the top layer even more so. It is possible that your support layer of 6" 36 ILD latex is still fine, but whether you can separate the layers to test them and possibly reuse it will again depend on your ability to do so. If the top layer of soft latex is the problem flipping it over would still be a problem since latex gets the support of whatever it’s placed upon, so soft and sagging latex as a foundation layer presents a problem as well.

Hopefully you can figure out a way to separate the layers for further diagnosis of the situation. When I’ve tried to separate glued layers of other foam it ended up tearing with uneven surfaces basically rendering the layers as useless.

Good luck and hope I’ve been of some help but that others will step in with additional guidance.

Regards,

  • Bill
3

Thank you Bill! I appreciate the info. I’m thinking of making a stand to house a blade to cut the top off. I will report back if I have success.

4

JohnnyMac,

It’s pretty normal for you to notice some loss of support factor of the comfort layers of this mattress, especially with the 15 ILD ultra soft latex used in the uppermost layer. While all of the layers of the mattress work in unison to provide comfort, the top two layers will have undergone the most change over time. I’d propose that if you’re going to perform surgery on your mattress that you separate both of these top 3" layers from the core.

Realize that this will be quite difficult for you to perform at home, as you won’t have the proper machinery to perform a good slitting. You can find upholstery saws, but these tend to be for cutting/shaping thinner pieces of material from top to bottom, not side to side. I’m sure you can accomplish this with some patience and time, but the results might not be what you want, and just prepare yourself for a result that might be the total destruction of your mattress.

When you unzip the cover you’ll find that there is a FR “mattress pad” glued over the latex layers (at least I believe that’s what they were using at the time you bought your mattress), and this is attached via a layer of glue along the bottom perimeter of the mattress, You can usually tear this off by hand. Disclaimer: removing the FR layer eliminates the ability of the mattress to meet federal flammability requirements 16 CFR Parts 1632 and 1633.

Then you’ll have to decide what you want to slit off of the mattress. As I mentioned previously, I would consider taking off both of the top 3" layers, as they both will have gone through a decent amount of mechanical stress. Replacing just the top 3" 15 ILD layer will result in an improvement, but if you’re sensitive to the gradual softening of the foam, you might still notice the softening that the 3" 24 ILD layer has developed when placing a new 3" 15 ILD layer atop it, as the 15 ILD won’t have much of a support factor to mask this softening. Plus, attempting to separate the seam between the 24 ILD layer and the 36 ILD core should be a bit easier than attempting to separate the 15 ILD layer from the 24 ILD layer. I don’t expect either separation to be super easy.

If you do take things down to the core, you might consider flipping the core over and placing your comfort layers atop the core in this manner. You might notice a bit of a difference in the firmness of the core - at least initially.

I personally own a Beautiful mattress and have had mine a bit longer than yours. It certainly has softened up, which is to be expected, but I still find it comfortable. If I was going to replace some layers on my mattress, I would replace the top two 3" layers, but this wouldn’t be my personal choice for a course of action. I’d instead look at something that’s already assembled using all new componentry, knowing that I’ll get the best value/durability out of such an arrangement. However, if you have the time and are so inclined, and are “comfortable” that the result might be a mattress that is unusable, there’s no harm in giving it a go. You may end up with something that works perfectly well for your needs.

Have fun on your adventure!

5

Thank you for the informative reply MatressToGo. I’m glad you replied when you did, because I am in the process of designing the stand that I am planning on using to support the knife to keep it straight.

I like your suggestion. I should have included, i’m in my first year of retirement, so yes I have the time:)

I was thinking of just purchasing a topper, but if I ended up purchasing two now. I’m interested in what you would suggest?

I’d instead look at something that’s already assembled using all new componentry, knowing that I’ll get the best value/durability out of such an arrangement.

A mattress as similar to the Beautiful as possible.

Thank you.

6

JohnnyMac:

You already have the specs of the Beautiful, so if you like that product I would replace whatever layers you dissect with something similar. The one thing I’d probably change would be to go to a slightly higher ILD for the uppermost layer - instead of something around the 15 ILD range, I’d probably choose something that is the next step up, commonly around the 19 ILD range, just to get a bit more consistency in the durability. There’s quite a few resources on this site for latex layers/componentry should you decide to go that route.

7

Thanks Jeff.
Today I flipped the mattress back to having the core on the foundation. The core didn’t sag/dip.

I didn’t notice or pay much attention to the tags when I flipped the mattress a few days ago.
The specs I listed I found online, in any case they were incorrect.

I bought the mattress late in 2013. The tags stated the layers were manufactured in 2012. This must have been an early design because the layers consist of:

3" 19 ILD Talalay
2" 24 ILD Talalay
6" 36 ILD Talalay
1" Unmarked, so not sure what…

So, Jeff this mattress had a 19 ILD on the uppermost layer and it was great!

Thanks again for your time and info.

8

JohnnyMac:

[quote]I bought the mattress late in 2013. The tags stated the layers were manufactured in 2012. This must have been an early design because the layers consist of:

3" 19 ILD Talalay
2" 24 ILD Talalay
6" 36 ILD Talalay
1" Unmarked, so not sure what…[/quote]

Where are you getting the ILD information? Is this from identification paper tags stuck to the raw latex?

Is the order of the layers as you describer:
3" - 2" - 6" - 1"? Or is the 1" layer next to the 24 ILD layer? If so, it’s most likely another layer of 24 ILD laminated to the 2" 24 ILD layer to make up the 3" total of 24 ILD.

You ILD numbers got me curious, so I went back through my old specs from PLB and in 2012 they listed the Beautiful as having:
3" 21 ILD Active Fusion Talalay
3" 24 ILD Talalay
6" 36 ILD Talalay

So, 19 or 21 ILD for the top layer - that’s really in the same ILD bucket.

In 2015 they went to the 15 ILD for the top 3" layer.

Well, at least you now have more accurate answers to your layer ILDs.

9

Yes sir. These pictures aren’t so great, I took for my own benefit, but you can see what I described.

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10

I did find this Jeff, post from 2012. Perhaps this was the first run, then was changed.

The Beautiful is 12" of blended Talalay latex so the “closest” comparison in terms of total thickness would be the SleepEz 13000 model. A mattress this thick isn’t usually necessary at all for someone of your height and weight but for the sake of comparison this would be the most equivalent model.

The Top layer of the PLB is 3" of 19 ILD Talalay.

The “standard” top layer of the SleepEz 13000 is 22-24 ILd Talalay so it would be a little firmer.

Firmer would typically mean a little less pressure relieving but a little more “supportive” meaning it can hold weight with a little less compression. Both are in the range of “soft” that most people would use in a comfort layer especially for side sleeping. Of course you could ask the manufacturer to use 19 ILD but this may not work as well as the standard 24 (or it could work better) which is why duplicating a mattress rather than PPP may end up excluding better options than you have tested.

The next layer of the Beautiful is 2" of 24 ILD.

The next layer of the 13000 would typically be 3" of medium (3" more inches of soft under soft would be too much softness for most people). A thicker middle layer generally acts a little softer but the ILD of their medium would be in the range of 30 - 32 which would be firmer. Overall this middle layer would tend to be firmer than the Beautiful.

Finally the support core of the Beautiful is 6" of 36 ILD with another inch of ultra firm Talalay under it as a stabilization layer.

Exactly what my mattress contains.

11

JohnnyMac:

Very interesting! It’s good that the tags were on the pieces of the foam used in your mattress. Yeah, PLB did away with the base foam piece, although they brought it back in 2015 in a plush 2" layer for their St. Honore line (which didn’t last very long). While model specs can change form year to year, they’ve stayed pretty consistent since 2016 or so. But your model definitely was a slightly different earlier design. My specs don’t go back quite that far, from 2009 when PLB was founded to 2011-2012 when they were acquired by Latex International. Good information!