My fiance and I had a chance to try out a few latex mattresses at an Ikea store, the Sultan Edsele natural latex mattress and the Sultan Elsfjord synthetic latex mattress. We decided we would prefer a mattress with a firmness in between the two models. Can anyone familiar with the SleepEZ select sleep 7,000 series mattresses recommend a combination of layer stiffnesses that would be comparable to this specification?
Our opinion of the Sultan Edsele was that we didn’t like how much we sunk into it; the Sultan Elsfjord was just a little too stiff. Also, we are concerned about the cotton/poly blend cover in the Elsfjord not breathing as well.
To make an accurate firmness comparison between the two based on “feel” it would probably be necessary to lie on both of them in a side by side test without too much time in between.
Unfortunately … Ikea doesn’t provide any information about the ILD of their latex so it’s is very difficult to estimate how firm or soft it may be compared to other Dunlop layers based on specs. About the closest you could do is estimate the firmness of the mostly natural Edsele based on density.
If you calculate the density based on size and shipping weight … it comes to 5.35 lbs/cu ft which is approximately 85 kg/cu meter. This includes the weight of the cover and other materials though so the average density would likely be in the range of 80 - 85 kg/cu meter. This would indicate that it was in the medium to medium firm range. This would be an approximation at best though and it also doesn’t take into account the relative firmness or softness of the zones or other differences between different layers of Dunlop.
Synthetic Dunlop is less dense than natural so you can’t really use this method to compare or approximate ILD of the Elsfjord. It is also less elastic and “stiffer” so direct comparisons are more difficult. Ikea “rates” the Elsfjord as being “very firm” though and the Edsele only “firm” so you know the Elsfjord is firmer but it’s difficult to know if this is because the Elsfjord is thinner or because the latex is firmer (thinner layers will act firmer than thicker layers).
This would probably be closest to the SleepEz medium because firm Dunlop would be much firmer than most people would prefer to sleep on directly and the soft would probably be softer than you would prefer (although it would be fine for most people) but again all of this is speculation. This may or may not be a close match though and it would probably be worth talking to SleepEz to see how the densities compared.
You’re also right that polyester/cotton blends don’t absorb moisture and humidity and regulate temperature as well.