Has anyone tried toppers, and would memory foam be better than natural fibres? Is it time to dump the mattress? Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper. A recent hotel stay has led me to conclude our mattress is past its best. I’m considering trying a mattress topper rather than fork out £600 for a new mattress. Has anyone tried a topper and did it work? I’m drawn to natural fibres, but perhaps a memory foam one would be better? Do you have a problem readers could solve? or write to us at Money, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GUThe Best Memory Foam Pillows So Far In 2017Saatva is an entirely online brand. Being online is a good thing because no matter where you live you can get your hands on one. This also cuts down the price as you are buying direct from the manufacturer and cutting out the middle man. A simple glance at Saatva’s site and you will notice they position their mattress as very high end.
You’ll notice words like luxury, premium and language of that nature. If you look at their construction, you’ll see why. All Saatva mattresses start with a steel coil base support system. They then have individually wrapped pocket coils on top of that. From there you get a layer of memory foam in the middle of the mattress for lumbar support. It’s topped of with a pillow top which is actually inserted under the outer covering for a cleaner look and less shifting of the pillow top foam itself. Basically, this is a high end mattress. Saatva also has a Green Initiative where they attempt to use safer, cleaner materials. The mattress is wrapped in an organic cotton cover. The steel in the springs is made from recycled steel. And their memory foam is made from a safe, bio-based foam. This is good since memory foam, as it was originally made, is inherently unsafe which is why NASA never used it in space shuttles. Memory foam, or to be more precise, viscoelastic foam, that is bio-based won’t have any toxicity to be worried about.
Normal memory foam that you would get at Walmart in a mattress topper is chemical based. This is why when you open that memory foam topper or pillow it smells horrible for days. That’s off-gassing and it has a tendency to disrupt sleep. Saatva only puts in 3/8″ of memory foam in the lumbar area so there isn’t much of it. What is there is safe and since it is under the pillow top it won’t heat up during the night as memory foam so infamously does. They fail to mention the material used in the foam for the pillow top on the website, but I spoke with the CEO and I was told the pillow top foam uses urethane and dacron. He assured me their foam is all environmentally safe. For example, you can make polyurethane foam from chemicals that will result in odors and off-gassing, or you can use something like soy to make the foam, which won’t have those issues. I don’t know exactly how they manufacture the foam, but I only detected a slight odor when I opened the mattress and that was most likely just from packaging and being wrapped up in its plastic bag.
I left it out for 24 hours and then put sheets on it and it was fine after that. When I tried the Luxury Firm Saatva mattress, I was pretty impressed with how it felt. It wasn’t too soft but it wasn’t too firm either. The combination of an innerspring, pocket coils and various foams makes for a comfortable mattress that is supportive enough that you don’t have back pain in the morning. And sure enough, when I woke up I had no back pain on this mattress. You can get Saatva mattresses in other comfort levels. I got the middle lever but there is a level softer and a level firmer. All that really means is more or less foam. I do have to say though, of all the mattresses I have ever pulled out of a bag, this is probably the thickest one I have ever seen. You know it is quality construction for that reason. There’s a lot going on in there instead of just some junky old springs and a layer of foam. It must have been 15 inches thick or so. For a second I thought there were two mattresses.
Now normally with luxury mattress brands you expect to get charged a lot. But Saatva was a very reasonable price. On their website it says their Queen starts at $899. For the materials you are getting and that kind of quality construction, that is a real steal. You rarely find coil on coil construction for under $1,000, or under $2,000 to be honest. So while it may not be the cheapest mattress you will find, it offers the best value for what you are getting. One thing did surprise me however. When the delivery company called me to set up a time to drop off my mattress, they said they had a Tempurpedic mattress for me. I haven’t found any connection between Saatva and Tempurpedic. But I did speak to the CEO about this and I was told all the mattress companies use the same delivery folks generally, so often times they don’t know what kind of mattress they have in the box. Seems it was just a mistake on the part of the delivery guy who was dropping it off. All in all, this is a good mattress at a good price.
Delivery does take quite some time depending on where you live, so be prepared for that. They are expanding rapidly and opening more manufacturing areas so hopefully that will speed up delivery times across the country no matter where you live. They do have a 30 day trial period so you can always get a full refund if Saatva doesn’t work for you. But I have a feeling you won’t be returning it. The warranty isn’t fantastic but again, you probably won’t need it. That’s mostly because you need body impressions greater than 1.5″ which is to say they expect in the 15 year warranty period that the mattress will develop body impressions of 1.5″ or less. For me, after a couple of years I can feel body impressions in the foam. So while the warranty won’t cover that, unless they are more than 1.5″, it is good practice to try and replace your mattress every few years not every 15. That is of course unless you are all right with body impressions in the foam. They hurt my back but that’s just me.