What an awesome site! Now some questions!

[phoenix]

Hi RoboLobo,

1. Circling back to the choices offered by Diamond Mattress, can you tell me much about their “Cooltouch” foam beds? I guess Cooltouch is their proprietary new-and-improved memory foam that is fabulously better than what the competition offers, but how much of that is real and how much is marketing fluff?;

Many manufacturers buy memory foam from the major foam manufacturers and then change the name to something that fits their marketing. Because the emphasis today is on memory foam that sleeps “cooler” … most of the names are chosen to include “cool something” or similar names. It’s true though that many of the memory foams used today are cooler, more breathable, and faster responding than they were were several years ago. There’s more about “cool” memory foam and some of the ways used to make memory foam cooler in post #6 here. In all cases … the most important spec to know about memory foam in terms of quality and durability is its density regardless of the name.

2. A simple definition question: what is “Perma-Flex”? I assume some sort of memory or Polyfoam that also has magical characteristics?

I’d have to see it in the context of a mattress description to know what it might be but you are probably right that it’s a proprietary or trademarked name for polyfoam or memory foam or possibly some for of plastic material. There is an Italian mattress manufacturer called Permaflex as well.

Do you have a link to a site that uses the name?

And just as an FYI, I have e-mailed Rocky Mountain a couple of times and have not heard back. Do you think these guys (and their competition) prefer to chat over the phone instead of writing out detailed e-mails?

It’s unusual that they wouldn’t reply but the rule I generally follow is that if a question has a simple one sentence answer that doesn’t include any “it depends” or variables or complexity in the answer I would use email otherwise I would always use the phone. In many cases … what a consumer thinks is a very simple question can have much more complex answers and in these cases emails can take some time to formulate a response and may be delayed. Email is not my favorite way to communicate about a subject that can be as complex as mattresses but I would think that an email reply saying “call us to talk about this” or “is there a number I can call to talk to you” would still be a good idea in these cases.

As a P.S. I just wanted to mention that I cannot access the Glossary. Is that intentional, maybe a broken link. Just curious. Thanks!

Thanks for letting me know about this. I did some recent software updates (including the glossary) and for some reason I seem to have killed the link. I’ll take a look tonight to see if I can fix it although it’s a work in progress and not nearly as extensive as it will be down the road.

Hey Phoenix, I also wanted to mention that I received a very nice e-mail back from Selectabed.com, and within my price range they recommended their “Memory Zone Deluxe”, which features 3" of 4lb memory foam on top, which you said might be OK for a Fibromyalgia sufferer. Below that are 2" of our “High Density PolyFlex™ Comfort Foam” and 5" of “High-Density, Firm Orthopedic Base”. I replied to the rep and asked him for the densities of those latter two layers, did I do right? Did I miss anything?

That’s exactly the information I would want to know which can help you make meaningful comparisons.

But additionally, apart from (you) knowing that the company has a good reputation, how can one even begin to tell if the memory foam and polyfoam these folks are using is a good quality? I know you can ask density, or maybe the ILD (?), but how do you ever know if one company’s “High Density Polyflex Comfort Foam” is the good stuff or not? Thanks!!

Quality and durability in memory foam or polyfoam is mainly expressed in density. If the foam is CertiPur certified or American made then density would be the most meaningful quality comparison and once you have this you have the simplest way to compare foam quality. There are other factors involved as well but these are far too complex to be used in any meaningful way and this is the most important and meaningful one that I would use.

ILD is only a comfort spec and has nothing to do with quality. It determines how soft or firm the foam is and any density of polyfoam can be made soft or firm. With memory foam … ILD is pretty much meaningless because all memory foam is just different degrees of soft and the softness changes with temperature, humidity, and the length of time the foam is compressed under weight. With latex … ILD is more connected to foam density and the type and blend of latex are the most important specs to compare quality.

Phoenix