Ultimate Dreams vs. 100% Latex (particularly sleepez)

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
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Hello Phoenix and fellow members. First let me say thank you Phoenix for putting together such an informative website. I don’t really want to think about how many hours I’ve spent researching mattresses, but thanks to this site I feel pretty well informed.

I have spent the last 8 years sleeping on a combination of nasty dorm mattresses, a cheap innerspring I was naive enough to buy on the spot at a local “Mattresses 4 Less” kind of place, and a no-name memory foam mattress I bought from woot.com. I’m ready to buy something that I’ll actually enjoy sleeping on. That being said, here is my current dilemma:

I am entering my final year in law school. Although I have earned some money this summer and hopefully have found a post-graduation job, I am primarily paying my way through law school with loans. So I don’t have a ton of discretionary income and value is my top priority.

I am 6’ 170lbs, primarily a side sleeper but occasionally sleep on my back, and have decided I want a queen size latex mattress in some form. There is a Savvy Rest dealer in my college town, and after trying out various combinations, I found my pattern: medium talalay top / medium dunlop middle / firm dunlop base. Obviously Savvy Rest is not a top choice for value, so I would look to replicate this combination with a SleepEz 10000 if I went the 100% latex route.

I have also been strongly considering the Ultimate Dreams mattresses on Amazon. They receive fantastic reviews from Amazon buyers, and I have been encouraged by the reviews on this forum as well. The SleepEz website says their medium talalay has an ILD of 30-32, which seems to correspond with a “4” on the Ultimate Dreams scale. One concern I have with Ultimate Dreams is that I can’t seem to find reviews from long-term owners. I know that my cheap memory foam mattress from Woot felt like heaven for about 6 months, then the memory foam broke down and now I pretty much just sink straight through to the base foam. I can tell that Chuck puts a lot of pride into his mattresses so I would imagine they last a long time, but it would be nice to find someone who can actually attest to that.

Accounting for the 5% discount from SleepEz for site members, there is nearly a $1000 difference between the two mattresses. Now with the savings I’ve accumulated from this summer’s work I can afford either mattress. But is there enough of a difference between the two to justify the extra expense for SleepEz? I’d be particularly interested to hear from anyone who has tested both a 100% latex mattress like a Savvy Rest or SleepEz and decided to go with the Ultimate Dreams instead.

Thank you in advance for any help and advice you all can offer.

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Hi mr.economy,

I know the feeling!

You may not get any long term feedback on these mattresses because they have only been making them for a few months. The latex that they use though has been in use for many years and it’s the materials that determine how a mattress performs and it’s durability. It’s the same Talalay latex that is used by all the manufacturers who use Talalay from Latex International and good quality latex (like Talalay) is more durable than even the best quality memory foam much less lower quality memory foam that sometimes lasts only a few months or years before softening takes its toll. The quilting layer is only 1.5" thick and is already soft (it’s for surface feel and resilience) so any softening in this will not have a significant effect on the mattress and the polyfoam base layer is high quality (the equivalent of what Tempurpedic uses in the support layers of their mattresses for example). The comfort layers are the most important place to have good quality foam though because they take most of the wear and tear with constant compression and this is where the durability of latex excels.

While I don’t have personal experience on either mattress … I can tell you that the surface layers for most people will be the bigger part of the more “obvious” feel of a mattress but the deeper support layers will also make a noticeable difference for most people. There are those though who may not notice a significant difference and for them the extra money may not be worth it.

Latex is more elastic than polyfoam which is stiffer and it also has better 'point elasticity" which means that when it compresses it has less effect on the area around it so it takes on the shape of the body better. While this is not as important in the support layers … it will still make a difference in it’s ability to “help” a comfort layer. It is also more adaptable to different sleeping positions with a wider “range” of response (from soft to firm) than polyfoam. It’s higher resiliency also means that it doesn’t absorb as much energy and has a livelier feel than polyfoam. Latex has always been the target that polyfoam manufacturers try to “copy”. Latex also has a higher compression modulus than polyfoam which means it gets firmer faster with more compression so in an equivalent ILD it can be softer on the surface of a layer but still offer more support than the same ILD polyfoam.

All of these though are specs that describe how it performs but each person’s subjective experience may be different and the ILD’s of the layers that each person tests will also make a significant difference as well. I’d also love to hear from those who have tested say a Savvy Rest or another all latex mattress (particularly Talalay over either more Talalay or Dunlop which is different again) … and give their impressions on the differences in feel between them. I can tell you that even though it wasn’t on the Ultimate Dreams … I can certainly feel the difference between a latex comfort layer over a latex core vs a latex comfort layer over a polyfoam core although I would choose either one over most of the “regular” mattresses I’ve tested.

Phoenix