Sleeping Organic

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Phoenix, thank you for your website and wealth of information located on the mattress underground! :slight_smile:

My wife and I had recently purchased a tempurpedic rhapsody breeze, and the ensuing off-gassing literally made us sick. Soar throats, burning eyes, short of breath, and headaches. Needless to say our personal experience was alarming enough to push us to the couch for a good nights sleep. We returned the mattress to Sleep Experts for. Small loss by trading in the mattress for their cheapest floor model ($189) and then donating that mattress to a local womenā€™s shelter, unwrapped.

After many nights of internet research (confused with what was largely paid for, ā€œinfo addsā€, we found your website.) Thank goodness! We tried a number off mattresses in our area, but ended up going with ā€œthe treeā€ latex mattress from sleeping organic.

What did we try?

  1. We first visited Sovn sleep systems and thought their dealers were first class and the beds very comfortable. However, their beds were the most comfortable on their European slat system. We have an adjustable base and did not want to buy a new base. When placed on the floor, their bed was much firmer and less comfortable to us. At 3100 for the mattress, they were priced average. The return policy here, not as good as the competitors.

  2. We visited Urban Mattress next in Dallas TX, and their staff were also knowledgeable and helpful. We tried the urban organic latex mattress 10ā€™ (i believe it was 10 inches - the thickest they had), but it was too firm for us. Next, we tried the Prana super vanyassa, but the price point of the fifth generation mattress was over 5k and we wanted to avoid poly foam after our experience with our previous mattress off gassing. Top this off with the return policy- no returns, only exchanges. The issue here was that all other mattresses of interest climbed significantly in price. If we did not like our mattress, we would need to invest thousands in another mattress using the store credit from the return. No thanks.

  3. We tried naturepedic Mattress in Southlake TX. Again, very nice staff. The beds here were very comfortable. We loved the 10ā€™ā€™ latex mattress (9ā€™ā€™ latex and 1ā€™'mattress cover). The issue here was the price. After the mattress, the protecter, tax and shipping, the total was $4700. This was almost in the Prana range. The dealer could not give us direct comparisons of how they were better than other similar mattress companies. Same product and 1500 more? I need a good sales job for that one. We would have done it in a split second for $500 more, or if the dealer could detail why their product was worth the premium. In my opinion, they just have higher overhead to cover.

  4. Last, after researching many online bed stores on your site listed, we found Sleeping Organic ā€œTreeā€ model. This bed was nearly identical to the Naturepedic bed, although Naturepedic individually wrapped their core foam layers in cotton, and Sleeping Organic did not. Ultimately, we bought the same bed for 1500 less from Sleeping Organic. Sleeping Organic staff was friendly and knowledgable- not to mention that they have a good return policy, and gave us the 5% discount for being on this site!)

When we receive our mattress in two weeks, i will repost the results!

Thank you for providing factual and informative information. Sites like yours are near impossible to find these days!

2

Hi Popz,

Thanks for taking the time to share such great feedback about your experiences.

Itā€™s great to see that you did some very good research and testing and made some good value comparisons ā€¦ and most importantly of all ended up making a great quality/value choice.

Congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

Iā€™m looking forward to your feedback when you receive it and have had the chance to sleep on it for a bit.

Phoenix

3

Iā€™m going through the same problem. Let us know how the Latex mattress works for you.

Iā€™m still shopping around. Either a prescription only Organic Cotton mattress or a Latex mattress by latex-pedic.

4

We should get our mattress in two weeks. I will repost our experience of receiving and setting up the mattress at that time. Thanks!

5

Update to our recent purchase of a 13ā€™ā€˜ā€™ Dunlop mattress from sleeping organic. Our mattress arrived today and first impressions:

  1. Delivery- shipped 5 days after quoted timeframe, but 1 week delay is not too horrible.

  2. Delivery packaging- boxes secured well enough, although the latex is shipped inside an open plastic bag. It was very strange to me that they would ship mattress components via UPS and not ensure th latex was fully protected. One of our boxes was ripped open and some dirt? had spilled inside and dusted one corner of the actual latex mattress. Why they ship in open plastic bags ?- very strange.

  3. Bed first impressions- The bed unpackaged ok but putting it together is a bit of a circus act. First, the mattress cover is laid onto your bed platform. You then stack your latex mattresses inside it to your desired comfort level in each side. My Side was stacked firm for the first layer, then medium, then medium, then soft. My wifeā€™s side was similar. Easy, right? Nope. Very trying experience. First, it takes an act of God to keep the mattress cover in position so it doesnā€™t buch up on any given side. The latex is ā€œstickyā€ in texture and heavy. it very difficult to shift the layers without distorting the mattress cover, making it crooked, why is this important? Accurate alignment allows you to zip the top of the mattress cover on. That was a two person experience for us. Critical feedback for sleeping organic: 1) label the mattress cover. Currently it is unlabeled and you canā€™t tell how to lay it on the bed frameā€¦ Second, sleeping organic should install two zippers on their mattress overs - there is currently only one. Sounds insignificant, but this is huge when reaccessing the latex foam to change layers or readjust (reposition). We got it put together after 1 hour and some cursingā€¦

Laying on the bed- it is only our first day, so I will keep it short. The bed is extremely firm. More so than other latex mattresses we laid on. This is frustrating to us as we gave descriptions of other beds to the sleeping organic sales rep and she recommended our current configuration: (top to bottom) soft, soft, Med, firm. It feels like a firm bed from any mattress store, so much that I donā€™t believe the layer swap program they offer (2 layer swap for free) will work for us. Our original request for a soft side for my wife and med-soft for me is Way off.

Very frustrated a tired this morning. The bed was so firm, I moved back tobour camping air mattress as it was more comfortable.

More to comeā€¦

6

Hi Po[pz,

Thanks for taking the time to share your comments and feedback ā€¦ I appreciate it.

Iā€™m not sure what happened here but they normally use thick plastic with the ends turned over and taped so either this wasnā€™t done for some reason when it was shipped or the tape may have come off in shipping. Either way itā€™s not the norm for the shipping bag to be open.

For most people putting a component latex mattress together with two people is a fairly simple process but there are a couple of ā€œtricksā€ that can make it much easier. The first is to fold the cover over the foundation to secure it so that it stays in place (with some types of platforms this isnā€™t possible) and the second is to use a lifting and ā€œwavingā€ or ā€œflickingā€ motion to move the layers into place and to align them inside the cover. Once you get the hang of it then itā€™s much easier. There is a good video here that shows the assembly process of a component latex mattress.

While firmness and softness is relative to each personā€™s perceptions ā€¦ your comments here make me wonder if there isnā€™t possibly something else happening (such as possibly having the layers in the wrong order?) because having two soft layers on top is actually softer than a typical ā€œsoftā€ layering. Itā€™s also possible that itā€™s just a matter of your initial perceptions and that it will feel softer for you once the mattress starts to break in and you adjust to the feel of a new sleeping surface (see post #2 here). For most people having either a soft/medium or soft/soft layers on top would certainly be in the softer range (soft/soft is softer than a typical "soft layering) and would be very comparable to any similar latex mattress in a store.

Iā€™m looking forward to any additional updates you have the chance to share and of course if you have any issues with firmness then I would certainly give them a call because they will certainly be willing to help in any way they can.

Phoenix

7

Phoenix,

Thank you for your response. My Prior post was completed from an iPhone and some of the detail was removed due to the mode on entry.

Quick elaboration from yesterdayā€™s account:

  1. Packaging - the beds did arrive in standard cardboard box shipping containers and wrapperd in thick plastic.
    This plastic was shapped much like your traditional sack or garbage bag. There must have been an oversight with mine, because sleeping organic shipped the beds to me without sealing the open end of the bag. The rolled mattress was also not full in serted into the bag - meaning, the bag had additional slack at the closed end. If the employee who had packed the bag had pulled the plastic casing up, there would have been significant amounts of plastic to ā€œtapeā€ or secure close. Unfortunately, it was not completed. If it had been, it would have been a very good shipping prep. Perhaps mine was an oversight.

  2. Setup - The Sleeping organic bed had to be assembled and my wife and I struggled with this step becuase we have an adjustable bedframe with metal posts at the end of the bed (there to hold the bed with raised upright). I took your advise today, disassembled the metal posts, and we stretched the mattress cover over the platform bed, prior to laying the mattresses on top. The result was excellent. About 15 minutes of work and the bed perfectly aligned. I stand corrected and apprectiate the input Phoenix - Thank you

**Improvement Idea for Sleeping Organic - they should have paper instructions, or some type of directional item to help suggest the easiest setup. Nothing was shipped with the bed and the website had no immediate links to this type of helpful informaiton. Easy fix for Sleeping Organice and something I (and you) should recommend.

**Improvement Idea for Sleeping Organic: Indicate the ā€œTopā€ of the mattress via a tag, or identifier. Their mattress covers are of good construction, but are rather non-descript. It is difficult to easily discern up from down, left to right, etcā€¦ A simple marker would solve this issue.

  1. Mattress Firmness - I called Sleeping Organic today and spoke to a very helpful rep. They suggested different combinations utilizing my layers for my wifeā€™s side. We made a simple swap to adjust my wifeā€™s bed a little softer, sacrificing one of my layers. She believes it is a great improvement. Ultimately, I believe we will need to make 1 (perhaps two) layer swaps, but Iā€™m hoping that this resolves the issue. I have back problems, so Iā€™m very picky about the bed, but I am willing to try it longer.

**I thought Dunlop Latex did not ā€œbreak inā€. Should we wait for it to break in, or should I swap a layer for a softer layer now? I know you do not comment on comfort or ā€œfeelā€ - how about the break in qualities of organic dunlop latex?

  1. Last, I would like to comment on the positives of our experience as it has mostly been critical up to this point - but hopefully balanced. The bed material appears to be of high quality - latex, bed cover, free sheets, baby mattress (we bought a mattress for our soon to be newborn). So far, our experience with the company has been very good. pleasent to work. The proof of that continue support could be during the exchange process and I will provide more informaiton if we cross that bridge. Lastly, I would still say that this forum and Phoenix have provided well balanced informaiton for our process. It is difficult buying a bed - unseen and untested. I donā€™t know if this experience will work out for us, but we will provide updates along the way and share information that will hopefully inform other sleepless folks, like us.

Thank you,

8

Hi Popz,

Thanks for adding the additional comments ā€¦ I appreciate them as well.

[quote]1) Packaging - the beds did arrive in standard cardboard box shipping containers and wrapperd in thick plastic.
This plastic was shapped much like your traditional sack or garbage bag. There must have been an oversight with mine, because sleeping organic shipped the beds to me without sealing the open end of the bag. The rolled mattress was also not full in serted into the bag - meaning, the bag had additional slack at the closed end. If the employee who had packed the bag had pulled the plastic casing up, there would have been significant amounts of plastic to ā€œtapeā€ or secure close. Unfortunately, it was not completed. If it had been, it would have been a very good shipping prep. Perhaps mine was an oversight.[/quote]

I talked with Sleeping Organic when you originally posted and they told me how they usually ship their layers so this must have been an unfortunate since they usually tape the plastic bag shut.

[quote]**Improvement Idea for Sleeping Organic - they should have paper instructions, or some type of directional item to help suggest the easiest setup. Nothing was shipped with the bed and the website had no immediate links to this type of helpful informaiton. Easy fix for Sleeping Organice and something I (and you) should recommend.

**Improvement Idea for Sleeping Organic: Indicate the ā€œTopā€ of the mattress via a tag, or identifier. Their mattress covers are of good construction, but are rather non-descript. It is difficult to easily discern up from down, left to right, etcā€¦ A simple marker would solve this issue.[/quote]

I think that both of these are good suggestions and Iā€™ll mention them when I talk with them next (and Iā€™m assuming you will as well).

[quote]3) Mattress Firmness - I called Sleeping Organic today and spoke to a very helpful rep. They suggested different combinations utilizing my layers for my wifeā€™s side. We made a simple swap to adjust my wifeā€™s bed a little softer, sacrificing one of my layers. She believes it is a great improvement. Ultimately, I believe we will need to make 1 (perhaps two) layer swaps, but Iā€™m hoping that this resolves the issue. I have back problems, so Iā€™m very picky about the bed, but I am willing to try it longer.

**I thought Dunlop Latex did not ā€œbreak inā€. Should we wait for it to break in, or should I swap a layer for a softer layer now? I know you do not comment on comfort or ā€œfeelā€ - how about the break in qualities of organic dunlop latex?[/quote]

All mattresses and materials (including both Dunlop and Talalay latex) will break in to some degree as the foam layers lose any of their ā€œfalse firmnessā€, the wool quilting compresses a bit, and the cover stretches and loosens a bit as well. I would generally suggest waiting for at least a couple of weeks before considering any changes to a mattress unless itā€™s absolutely not possible. Even the process of your body adjusting to a new mattress can change how a mattress feels over the course of the first few weeks because your body will have a muscle memory that is used to a learned alignment from your previous mattress (see post #3 here).

Iā€™m looking forward to any additional updates you have the chance to share over time.

Phoenix

9

Hi Popz,

We are here to help! We are very sorry you are experiencing difficulties with our product. Sounds to me like your latex shipping box may have been damaged in transit causing it to open the plastic inside. We set a very high standard for quality control but sometimes things happen that are out of our control. As far as setup, it can be difficult at first but the delivery method and setup is industry standard, unless you opt in for in home delivery and setup. With our tracking system we send an instruction video with our last email (order completed). You have to read this email to find the video but we are working to make it more simple and clear. Each box should have been labeled at the top layer 1, 2, 3 or 4 with firmness on it as well.
Please give us a call so we can resolve the situation, We are happy to send out more soft latex layers if the mattress is to firm or if everything has left a bad taste in your mouth we will take your mattress back and give you a full refund. We apologize for your problems and appreciate your feedback and business.