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I would like to know what some of the pros & cons are of sleeping on a latex mattress, especially in the kit form from a company like Flobeds (I have samples of the different latex cores from Flobeds). I understand that issues with comfort of latex depend on ILDs, a person's body type & weight, personal preferences, etc. The only type of mattress I've slept has been an innerspring (with no latex). It's hard to tell by laying on a latex mattress in a store what the mattress will feel like to actually sleep on. What is the difference in feel between sleeping on an all latex mattress and on an innerspring mattress? Does a latex mattress provide enough support for the lower back and hips, or is a latex mattress not a good choice for providing good back support? Does a latex mattress provide a good seating surface if you want to sit up in bed to read, or does your butt sink down too much for it to be comfortable enough to sit up in bed? With kits such as Flobeds that don't have a firmer edge support around the mattress to support sitting on, do you just sink in when you sit on the side of the bed? Can a latex mattress feel like you are sleeping on a piece of "dead" foam, "dead" meaning no cushiness, no springiness to the foam? Thank you very much for help and opinions. I've been reading this site (and old one) for over a year now, and I'm still learning. |
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Hey Sager, lighten up! People join this forum to ask questions of those who have had experience with something they are considering. Mattresses are big investments these days. Centralpark just wants to hear the pros and cons to help make a decision. BeddyBye, I have noticed that some people on this forum really seem to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed! I've had a couple of people tear into me for dissing Talalay and for liking memory foam. Geez! Centralpark, I'm going to try and be completely objective here with your latex question. I don't think it's possible to really get a comfortable Talalay mattress with a single core like the Englander Kim returned. Overall you will have a much better shot at getting comfortable on Talalay with a mattress kit. You have to build it up from a firm support layer to a softer comfort layer. And as Lynn pointed out this can take work to get it right, It can also take time and money to pack up foam layers and ship them back for exchange. Some people love Talalay and have never slept better. Other people can't sleep on it at all. This is something I feel strongly prospective buyers should be aware of. Talalay has properties that do not make it a good fit for many people with lower back issues. The Talalay process whips a lot of air into the foam and creates an extremely resilient material. At firmer ILDs this resilency can exert so much pressure against the body that although it doesn't register as pressure points like you would get on an innerspring mattress, it can make you sore all over. This is why you need a softer comfort layer on top. However, softer Talalay doesn't provide enough back support and some people find their back muscles tensing after a few hours in reaction to this. Another characteristic of soft Talalay is that despite the marketing angle that claims Talalay supports the body evenly, it doesn't. Your hips will sink much more deeply into soft Talalay than the rest of your body, throwing your spine out of alignment. This is where the middle layer becomes critical striking the balance between the soft comfort layer and the firm support layer, and it can be tricky finding the correct combination of ILDs to provide proper support and comfort. Talalay is very springy and has a jiggly feeling when you lay on it. Some people find this distracting. Unless your mattress is on the firm side overall, it won't provide a comfortable surface for sitting up and reading or watching TV either. Like Mattressmom I prefer Dunlop latex. Unlike Talalay that blends more air into the foam the softer it gets, all Dunlop latex is the same density. Softness is determined by the size of the pinholes in the mold. It is possible to get a supportive mattress at a softer ILD in a single core with Dunlop. I know because I slept on one for 20 years and Talalay was a huge (and painful) disappointment by comparison. Dunlop has all of Talalay's durability and none of its negative characteristics. It is a passive foam that does not exert pressure against the body. Although it does have spring to it (unlike memory foam) it isn't jiggly. It supports the body evenly and comfortably and takes no getting used to. I recommend looking into it. One other thing you might want to consider is a hybrid mattress. Some people just need the rigid support of an innerspring no matter how much they would like to sleep on an all foam mattress. Which is not to say you can't have the best of both worlds. A hybrid mattress has an innerspring support unit and has several thin layers of latex, HR foam or memory foam on top. The foam completely insulates the body from the pressure points associated with old fashioned innerspring mattresses, and the spring unit provides the back with the support structure it needs. Sometimes its not that you can't sleep on latex. It's just that you can't sleep on a mattress that's all latex. The best hybrids come with a zippered cover like a latex mattress kit so you can shift the layers around for customized comfort. BeddyBye has this kind of mattress and I'm jealous! The choices are out there, Explore them.
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sager66 wrote: Based on your reserach, your query seems very illogical . . only YOU can determine if latex is suitable. Are you seeking someone to blame if latex does not work out for you, as compared to taking personal responsibility? Thanks for coming to my defense, Beddybye & Cloud9...I appreciate it. What sager66 wrote is rediculous, and his comments don't foster an environment where people can feel free to ask for advice and information on this forum. I don't know how sager came up with the question about me seeking someone to blame if latex doesn't work out for me. Everyone, thank you so very much for providing in-depth answers to my questions. I have a much better understanding of the pros and cons of latex mattresses, and I know that your answers will help other people searching for answers about latex, too. I personally don't know anyone who sleeps on a latex mattress, so it's wonderful to have the knowledge and opinions of people like you who have slept on those types of mattresses. Thanks again! |
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"At firmer ILDs this resilency can exert so much pressure against the body that although it doesn't register as pressure points like you would get on an innerspring mattress, it can make you sore all over. " While this may be a good shortcut way to describe the effect of firm talalay, it's not really accurate. Gravity is constant. Period. Your weight is a force (F=MA). ANY surface you contact exerts a force equal and opposite to your weight. Here's my hunch: Its well known that the more conforming the surface, the more the force is spread out over a greater surface area. That's why waterbeds are so unbelievably comfortable to lie on (but not necessarily sleep on since insufficient support for heavier areas). Visco foam also conforming, but with its own set of problems. A nonconforming surface (floor) concentrates weight on the contact points. Same with firm mattresses. Softer mattresses use various foam layering to dissipate the force. Dunlop probably should be considered a more conforming foam, with the areas of greatest weight/pressure collapsing more easily, thus transferring some of the adjacent body load to the adjacent foam surface. Higher ILD (weight required to compress 9" plate 25%) talalay does not conform nearly as much, thus weight more concentrated. When you move, weight is re-concentrated in new area. And so on. Thus, if you lie perfectly still, all mattress surfaces will feel the same if weight is equivalently distributed. Layering from firm base to softer top counters this propensity of talalay by (as advertised) using a top comfort layer to conform/dissipate forces, and lower layers to further dissipate them, until reach base. Further (and this is just a hunch) a talalay layered mattress may simply be an attempt to create the feel which results from the settling during the dunlop manufacturing process. Dunlop generally doesn't use ILD. A dunlop mattress effectively may become progressively firmer as you go deeper in the bun--if you sliced one in 1" layers, the top layer might have something comparable to a 24 "ILD", while the bottom closer to a 36. Since it's a single-slab, the whole may be firmer than the sum of its parts (ILDs of its layers). In comparison, a talalay with a uniform ILD throughout would either be too soft for support, or too firm for comfort. This would also suggest that possibly one could build a talalay mattress which would feel identical to a dunlop mattress, by sandwiching and gluing layers of multiple ILDs. And this essentially is what the online kits are doing, though with thicker pieces for durability and simplicity, and not glued. Dunlop has its proponents, but what has always been considered a big advantage of talalay is consistency in product, since much more is under the control of the manufacturer, and more durability (though would disagree). However, a major advantage of talalay from the top manufacturers is warranty. It's much easier/cheaper to make dunlop so there are more players. Unless you know the manufacturer, or have past experience with its product, it may not be around a few years down the line when a problem surfaces. |
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"and more durability (though would disagree)." Correction: "and more durability (though some would disagree)." |
| Dave at FloBeds.com did send me a 1.5" Dunlap Topper and it was too firm for me and I did not like the feel at all. I prefer Talalay Latex so for. I can see that a bottom base of Dunalap latex may be good but my 44 ILD solves that problem. I have not tried layers of Dunlap latex under a a softer talalay topper so I can't comment there but the Dunlap latex topper exerted more pressure points for me and I just preferred my 1" soft Overstock Talalay Latex Topper that gave just a tiny bit of cushion. I still wish my bed was zoned but so far this is the best for me and each person is so different. |
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sager66 wrote: Based on your reserach, your query seems very illogical . . only YOU can determine if latex is suitable. Are you seeking someone to blame if latex does not work out for you, as compared to taking personal responsibility?<BR> Yes, I also thought that this comment was rude and uncalled for, but being relatively new to the forum I wondered if it was normal discourse. However checking the forum guidelines I read: "This is pretty much a mellow (think "good night's sleep feeling") forum about the best ways to shop for a mattress. A mattress. So, please refrain from being impolite in any way" So... be nice. This message was modified Feb 2, 2008 by kimmcgov
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Lynn2006 wrote: Dave at FloBeds.com did send me a 1.5" Dunlap Topper and it was too firm for me Lynne, what was the ILD of that Dunlop topper? Was it a blend, or 100% natural latex? |
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Glad to see the informative posts about latex. It's been really interesting to read the analysis of the differences between the kinds of latex. I think all the Talalay mattresses we tried locally were 5.6" cores with other "stuff" on top. We might have liked Talalay better if it had been layered properly. We love our 10 inch three layer Dunlop mattress but it feels very much like the six inch 32 ILD cores we got each of the kids. The Dunlop is definitely denser on the "bottom" than the "top". I wonder if the designation of 32 ILD is an average approximation of the feel of the whole core. The only negative we can see with the 6 or 7 inch mattresses is that modern sheets are too big for them. My impression is that it is fussier (can't think of a better word) to get the proper combination of comfort and support with Talalay but if you do it can be very good. OTH, Dunlop might have other down sides but is a little easier to get the right firmness. Our experience was that we could not find Dunlop as easily as Talalay - especially locally. It seemed that much of the information we found proclaimed the universal superiority of blended Talalay and a onlly few sources felt Dunlop was at least equal to Talalay. Maybe low quality Dunlop has given all Dunlop a bad name. |
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I think thisthread has already pretty much covered it, but I'll add my 2 cents into the mix anyway. Talalay latex in medium to firm densities just "pushed back" too much on my back. It did not feel at all relaxing to me. Although I have not SLEPT ON Dunlop latex, my impression from laying on it was that it does not push back this way - it's more of a "dead" foam, but with support, not like visco or memory foam which does not push back enough, and does not provide support - I don't care what Tempurpedic says. Also, visco or memory foam wears out fast and becomes softer, less supportive over a relativeily short period of time. Back to latex: It provides excellent support. The question is: will you like the type of support it gives? And will you like the "push back" of Talalay vs the less pushy feel of Dunlop? There is no way to answer this. You have to just try it, and really you cannot tell a lot from just laying on it in a store, you have to sleep on it. This is why a place like flo-beds is so good because for just the risk of shipping it back, you can try it out and see if you like it. And you have so many different combinations to be tried (for a little more investment in shipping - shipping the layers back to them and vice versa)... So unless you just hate latex, you should be able to find a combination that works for you. They are betting on this, and since they've been in business a long time, it's obvious that their bets on this are paying off. We were one of their bets that did not win. I just did not like the way Talalay felt as a main core. Had it been over springs, or had it been Dunlop instead of Talalay, we might have been able to make it work. I'm not sure - does Flo-beds offer Dunlop as part of their layering? If they did, I don't think they offered it to us years ago as we did not try it. We did try various combinations of firmnesses or ILD's, and some with a memory foam topper, but we just did not like the feel. What I have found recently, however, is that I can tolerate Talalay in a very soft, low ILD. In the very low ILD's it does not feel like it is pushing back so much, it feels more like sinking in, yet not like the sinking in of memory foam. The bottom line is that you just have to try it and for trying it, Flobeds is a very good company to try it with. Although it won't give you the true feeling of sleeping on a 100% latex mattress, you could try buying one of the 1" latex toppers from Brylane and see if you like how that feels. It will at least give you some idea. But of course a higher ILD that a core is made of feels much more bouncy and pushes back more than this topper will. (see the thread(s) on Brylane's topper deal.) Oh, and the other thing is, that as someone else said, you may like the feeling of latex over springs or over some type of adjustable slat frame, but not like it by itself on the floor or on a platform. We are now building our own mattress over old Sealy springs because I do not like the feel of foam by itself that much. If I were to buy a whole new latex bed, I think I'd want one over springs. (By the way, who sells a component style latex mattress over springs??) |
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Lynn, I just went to FloBeds and I can't find where they sell Dunlop at all. I would love to try a 1.5 inch Dunlop processed latex topper to give it a try. Does he have these on hand but just doesn't advertise them? I might have to contact him to ask. Lynn2006 wrote: Dave at FloBeds.com did send me a 1.5" Dunlap Topper and it was too firm for me and I did not like the feel at all. I prefer Talalay Latex so for. I can see that a bottom base of Dunalap latex may be good but my 44 ILD solves that problem. I have not tried layers of Dunlap latex under a a softer talalay topper so I can't comment there but the Dunlap latex topper exerted more pressure points for me and I just preferred my 1" soft Overstock Talalay Latex Topper that gave just a tiny bit of cushion. I still wish my bed was zoned but so far this is the best for me and each person is so different. |