Hi NeedABedASAP14,
They would certainly be a good place to test some latex mattresses that were on the softer side. A forum search on sleepworksny (you can just click this) will bring up some comments and feedback about them as well.
There are probably hundreds of posts in the forum about Pure Latex Bliss and dozens about the Beautiful (a forum search on PLB Beautiful as an example will bring up over 200 posts).
The reasons I would consider the PLB mattresses is that they all use good quality materials (talalay latex) and along with their topper options they have a wide range of “sleeping systems” to choose from that would “fit” a large percentage of people (who liked latex). They are generally “better than average” value compared to many mainstream mattresses but it can pay to do some comparison shopping because even though advertised prices are “controlled” by PLB … there is a range of prices between retailers across the country. Some of the retailers that you can use as a pricing reference (or for price matching) are listed in post #32 here.
Outside of any differences in pricing between the Beautiful and similar mattresses that use 12" of latex or have options for exchanging layers … the main “caution” about the Beautiful is that it is very soft and there have been some people on the forum who fell in love with it’s “feel” in the showroom and then discovered it was too soft for them for good alignment and they needed to exchange it so I would make sure you do some careful and objective testing for PPP.
A local purchase vs an online purchase and the benefits of each are part of each person’s personal value equation and there are many people who are much more comfortable testing and buying a mattress locally vs an online purchase even if the cost is higher.
There are several ways that one mattress may “match” another (see post #9 here) but the only way that you would have an “exact” or at least very close match is if both mattresses used the same materials in the same thickness and firmness level and the same cover and it would be rare that two mattresses would match this closely. Other than that … you would find that some mattresses would be equivalent to each other in one way or another (particularly if the top 5" or 6" and the cover were very similar in terms of the type of materials, layer thickness, and cover) but different people may have different perceptions of how closely they would “match” because of different body types and sleeping positions. This is where subjective perceptions about smaller differences in a mattress come into play. The top 2 layers of the Beautiful are both 3" thick so it would be a little more common to find a mattress that had two top layers in the same thickness that were in a similar ILD range which for some people would feel quite similar while for others would not be as close.
This again varies with each person’s “risk tolerance” and there are a high percentage of customers that are satisfied with their first choice or with a single layer exchange but there are always a smaller percentage who find it more difficult to find the best layering for them. Several of the online manufacturers on the list have a very low cost or no cost return policy as well that allows their customers to return the mattress so with these manufacturers it’s certainly feasible to return the mattress as a “last resort” if there are no other options remaining.
Phoenix