Why is the terminology used with latex so confusing?

[phoenix]

Hi all,

Good discussion

Just to chime in with some of my thoughts …

I am a big fan of the open disclosure of qualitative and quantitative information by mattress manufacturers. This would include the type and density of any polyfoam and memory foam in the mattress or the type and blend of any latex or the certifications for their materials as some examples. This (and other similar types of information) would allow for meaningful comparisons in terms of quality, value, and safety.

Besides this though there are legitimate reasons to keep some information proprietary and would only be disclosed at the discretion of a manufacturer. This would include things like the ILD of any foam layers, the supplier of their materials, or things that are connected to the operation of a business or their business model.

After much reading and re-reading on this wonderful site, this is what boils down for me. There need to be 2 categories of information provided by latex suppliers/manufacturers/dealers: 1) the Process used - either Dunlop or Talalay and 2) the list of components/ingredients in any given mattress slab, in descending order.

I would agree that the type and blend of any latex is important information to have (at least to the degree that a blend can be accurate because it can also change and would be inside a range). The specific compounding formula of the latex though would still be proprietary information and is a closely guarded secret by latex manufacturers for competitive reasons. The “safety” of their formulation would be a matter of releasing their certifications because I don’t think that the specific formula would be relevant to most consumers who don’t have a degree in materials science and wouldn’t understand it anyway or would take it out of context.

I think I understand what ‘organic’ means - the latex batter has to be free of certain contaminants and the processor must not allow the batter to become contaminated in the facility.

The raw latex is only one level of organic certification and applies to whether an agricultural material is USDA certified. There are two other levels of “organic” certifications (see post #2 here) that apply to the manufacturing of a component or product (or a latex core) and to the combination of components that are assembled into a final mattress.

The term ‘natural’ has no precise industry definition and is thus useless to the consumer.

I would agree with this for the most part and the word has many meanings that can be confusing or misleading in actual use to say the least. It can still be useful to some degree though to differentiate raw materials that exist in nature from materials that are the result of a manufacturing process that don’t exist in nature for those where this may be important.

Does what I’m saying make sense? Does anyone know exactly what is in any given batch of latex that is poured into the molds of either a Dunlop or Talalay processed mattress? Does anyone provide this kind of labeling information on the end product mattress slabs?

What you are saying makes perfect sense and you can see a more detailed discussion of many of the substances used to make latex and a generic description of a latex compounding formula here but no manufacturer is likely to release the specifics of their formula and to determine the “safety” of any material you would be dependent on the certifications which is the “end result” rather than the actual chemicals that are used which may or may not indicate its safety. There are many synthetic chemicals that are completely “safe” as a fully reacted combination or polymer from the perspective of their ability to cause harm while the individual chemicals used to manufacture them may not be when they are considered one at a time. Of course, regardless of whether a material is natural or synthetic, this doesn’t necessarily take into account any “harm” they may do to the environment or the harm they may do in other ways to certain cultures or people or the amount of non renewable energy or resources they consume in their manufacturing, transportation, or the final decomposition or recycling of the materials which for some people may be just as important as any harm they may cause in actual use.

Phoenix