Foam Latex Mattress

For the ultimate sleep experience, take a look at memory foam, latex, and organic mattresses. Each of these types of beds is made of different materials and satisfies a different need for a customer in search of a good night’s sleep. All of them are several steps above conventional bedding in comfort and health benefits.

Memory foam came to the consumer market early in the 1990s after being developed in the 1970s by NASA. The first products available were memory foam mattress toppers, followed by foam mattresses. Today, these products are the fastest growing item in the bedding industry.

Bedding companies have jumped on this booming industry, with more and more products being developed and sold each year. Today’s consumer is faced with a seemingly endless variety of memory foam bedding to choose from. Without a good shopping guide, it can be hard to make the right purchasing decision.

This website walks you through the basics of buying a foam bed. You’ll learn how to choose a product based on density, evaluate its quality, and decide whether a memory foam mattress pad or a foam mattress is a better choice for you.

After the NASA memory foam mattress was developed, the medical profession picked up the technology to help patients who were bedridden for long periods of time and suffered from bed sores. Memory foam beds demonstrated their usefulness in medical settings because they were so responsive to changes in temperature and because they distributed body weight evenly over the bed’s surface instead of concentrating pressure on points of contact. The first-generation foam bed was very comfortable but had significant durability issues and suffered from compression and cracking problems.

Tempur-Pedic® gets the credit for bringing this material to the consumer marketplace. Initially, the company created their own proprietary foam bedding, which they trademarked as Tempur®, that lasted much longer than the NASA prototype. In the beginning, Tempur® was only available in the medical industry, but patients praised the product for relieving their back pain and helping them get better sleep and wake up feeling better in the morning. This is how the product became available to consumers. Today, Tempur® remains an excellent but expensive foam bedding product.

As other manufacturers heard about manufacturing a mattress with memory foam, they jumped on the bandwagon. These manufacturers came from the consumer side of the bedding industry and understood the need for affordable memory foam products. Once these products hit the market, memory foam toppers and mattresses really took off, resulting in the dizzying array of products we see today.

The beauty of this material is that it’s sensitive to temperature, especially body temperature. At a low temperature, it’s firm, or viscous. When it warms up from being exposed to your body temperature, it softens and wraps around your body’s contours, becoming more elastic. This is why it’s often referred to as visco elastic .

Although all the brands of memory foam pads and other products may look alike, there are significant differences in quality. These differences include how long they last, how well they respond to temperature changes, how firm they are, and how well they distribute body weight. These are some of the factors you need to consider when shopping for a memory foam bed topper or looking for the best memory foam mattress.

One of the choices you’ll confront early in your search for foam bedding is whether to buy a foam mattress, or a memory foam topper to go over your conventional mattress. Foam mattresses are more expensive than memory foam mattress pads, and although the mattress will last longer, eventually the foam will wear out. When that happens, you’ll have to replace the entire mattress, instead of just buying a new topper and putting it on the old bed. However, if your conventional mattress is already showing signs of age, experts advise against putting a new memory foam pad over an old mattress. To really get the best sleep experience, you’ll need to replace your worn-out bed with either a foam mattress, or a conventional innerspring mattress plus a memory foam cover.

With the huge surge of growth in foam bedding products, sooner or later you’ll find a cheap memory foam mattressfor sale. Although bargains can be had, approach cut-rate products with caution. Cutting corners in the manufacturing process can result in a product that doesn’t hold up. One of the biggest challenges for the manufacturers is producing a durable bed that holds up under the stress of eight or more hours of use every night, 365 days a year. A cheap product could prove more expensive in the long run when it loses its density after only a few years of use.

Memory foam density is measured in pounds per cubic foot. Therefore, material rated at 3.2 pounds would weigh that much if you sliced off a cube of it measuring 12 inches on all sides. Densities of high quality visco elastic foam range from 2 to 5 pounds. Anything heavier will feel too firm and not shape itself well to your body while you sleep. Lighter weights are more comfortable than heavier weights, but can be less durable. Be especially cautious when buying in the 2 to 3 pound range and stick to a reputable brand with a good warranty.

Latex Mattresses

Sales of latex mattress products have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Latex bedding has been available for decades, but their sales have found a resurgence recently in tandem with interest in other natural, organic products. Although many people don’t know it, latex is a natural material.

Natural latex is sometimes called natural rubber. The life cycle of a latex foam mattress begins with the Para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). The rubber tree is native to South America, but most latex is harvested from plantations in Asia, particularly Sri Lanka. Latex rubber is gathered from taps inserted in scores in the tree’s bark, collected in cups, and treated in a labor-intensive process that consists of acid coagulation, pressing the water out, and drying it for shipment in a smokehouse. The tree’s bark is scored carefully so the tree keeps supplying rubber year after year.

The effort required to collect the rubber accounts for the higher price of latex foam mattresses. But consumers are becoming more and more willing to pay a higher price for natural latex mattresses because they worry about the chemicals that go into the manufacture of conventional bedding. In particular, people are backing away from the flame retardants used in polyurethane bedding products, including memory foam. One of the major advantages of the natural latex mattress is its built-in flame retardant, which is a major factor when choosing whether to buy a synthetic foam bed or a latex mattress.

Latex is also naturally resistant to mildew and dust mites. People with allergies may sleep better on a latex bed mattress because the rubber is naturally hypo-allergenic. Some latex rubber mattresses are 100 percent organic. The best latex mattress tends to be the most expensive. If you’re concerned about saving money, you can also buy bedding products made of natural and synthetic blends that combine the best qualities of both latex and memory foam while reducing your exposure to the chemicals found in purely synthetic beds.

Latex beds having many things in common with memory foam mattresses. Both products conform to the body shape of the sleeper better than conventional innerspring bedding. Both products are available as a single-unit mattress, or as a topper or pad to put over a conventional mattress. Both types of bedding sell at premium prices, and both offer an extremely restful, comfortable sleep experience.

Latex mattresses differ from synthetic foam beds in several respects. Latex has very little sensitivity to temperature compared to memory foam, so you don’t have to wait for your body to warm it up before it starts to shape around you. Pure organic latex mattresses are chemical free, and they often have a natural fiber ticking, such as cotton or wool. A pure latex mattress is a green, eco-friendly bedding choice.

Organic Mattresses

An organic mattress is made from materials found in nature and should be free of petroleum products, flame retardants, chemicals, and insecticides. Mattresses made of 100 percent natural latex are one example of a natural organic mattress. Other common examples of organic mattresses include organic futons made of cotton and/or wool, and more exotic designs made with soybeans, hemp, and other natural fibers.

One of the problems you’ll encounter when shopping for an organic bed mattress is that there are no standards in the bedding industry for certifying a product as organic. Unlike organic food, which is strictly regulated and inspected, bed manufacturers are on the honor system when claiming their product to be organic. However, companies that value their reputations are making an effort to disclose what goes into their products, in response to increasing customer demand for nontoxic sleep alternatives.

The chemicals that go into non-organic bedding may surprise you. Polyurethane foam is derived from petroleum, a potential source of volatile organic compounds. In governmental and private studies, VOCs have been found as a source of respiratory inflammation and other health issues. Flame retardant chemicals were voluntarily discontinued by the mattress industry in 2004, but the synthetic fibers that replaced them are of unknown composition. The plastic covers used on crib mattresses and children’s bedding are suspected health hazards and were recently banned under federal law. If this toxic soup of nonorganic compounds makes you uneasy, you’re not alone. Health concerns are the single biggest motivator in the search for the best organic mattress. After all, you spend one-third of your life in bed—why not do it safely?