Quality & Value Guide

The quality of materials is paramount and will not appear on a label or spec sheet, and how they are brought together is also as important if you expect your mattress to last and deliver the same quality feel year after year.

Just an example, how many of you know what leading edge is? do you care? probably not but if you knew how it can vary in quality and how that makes a difference to the nights sleep year after year you would when you are parting with money.

This could go on and on but we shall choose just the following as examples of why construction materials and techniques matter.

• Leading edge - This is the piping you find surrounding the edge of your mattress on our healthbeds mattresses it is the highest grade and quite thick it is also double over locked stitched. Compared to the other factory visits we have attended the Healthbeds piping took longer to go on and was by far the strongest. Its purpose is to hold all external surfaces together if the leading edge fails tears comes loose the tension in the cover goes and you may be considering a new mattress.
• Sidewall Strength - This is simply how stiff the sides of your mattress is and should be stiff enough to allow you to sleep next to the edge without it collapsing and giving you full use of the mattress sleep surface, so its important its good! It is achieved by a number of methods and sometimes not at all, relying upon the tension in the covers of the mattress. For a spring mattress the most common is the use of a V shaped spring imagine Vshaped wire on its side with a coli at the base of the V each end of the spring is attached to the top and bottom of the spring unit giving additional strength at the edge. The problems with this method are as follows -
  • The continued wear on the top of the V spring can mean they come of loosing sidewall support.
  • These springs can press against the side upholstery and be unsightly.
  • You can also get a clicking noise when you get on and off or if you sleep near the edge you are more likely to hear it which can be irritating.
  Our Healthbeds mattresses use two steel bands that surround the entire edge it avoids all of the problems that can occur with a V spring and means you get the same stiffness around the entire edge.
• Tufting - Tufting is a traditional method of securing the comfort layer in place and has been practiced for hundreds of years it is simply a length of string shorter than the depth of the mattress creating a tension in the cover and keeping the fillings in place. The only problem is that they can come off this is because the string is threade through a felt pad often covered by a wool rosette and the felt pad can wear out. This means the string will pull through and tension is lost this then leads to fillings moving which can result in a lumpy mattress and areas where the comfort layer has moved away and you may feel springs. They can be seen on our healthbeds Wentworth mattress however our tufts are held in place not only by felt pad and rosette but also with a polyurethane ring and T piece which can not pass through it guarantees the tufts will do there job through out the mattress life.

These aspects and others of mattress construction and materials is the most ignored but is the detail we spent so long looking for in the supplier of our mattresses because this is where the quality is finally brought together. There is little point using the best quality of bedding materials if it isn't delivered in the best way and designed to last and perform.

You should expect 2-3 times longer life from a quality natural talalay latex mattress they will generally be more expensive than alternatives but will over fantastic value. Beyond this the luxurious consistent soft feel without pressure points offers a more tradional feel against memory foam. This means our Latex mattresses feel more like a 2000 thin gauge quality pocket sprung mattress (but better!) in that it has a similar resilience / spring feel so it is easy to move on. You will never feel like you have sunk into it, it also breathes much better than memory foam you can blow straight through it with little resistance. So for those of you that want the best sleeping material have tried and dont get on with memory foam but you want all the benefits without the downsides with a traditional feel then you can. These mattresses do cost more at around £1200 for a king size but you can expect at least twice the life and a level of comfort and support you wont get in a £600 mattress they are great value. And yes we sleep on the medium Posture Perfect and despite a 2 year long policy of changing our mattress every 3 mths trying the ones we have chosen to stock I am pleased to say this is the last we are changing until Jan 2030!

Latex like memory foam commonly has aggregate added, normally melamine powder this means the manufacturer can make more for less of the expensive ingredient so there are key questions to ask when evaluating the quality of latex and there are different types.

Firstly there are 2 methods of manufacture Dunlop and Talalay which is by far the superior and now the more commonly used latex in mattresses.

The Talalay method produces the finest latex available how ever not all Talalay latex is the same you can have a blend of chemical (oil) based and natural or completely natural. The latex in our mattresses is manufactured by Latex International and is 100% natural.

Manufacturing Latex

Natural latex is tapped from the tropical rubber tree. Natural latex, soaps and rubber curing agents are mixed in a temperature-controlled, stainless steel tank where it is measured for Ph, viscosity and temperature.

Moulding

The compound mix is transferred to the pressroom where it is whipped into a frothy liquid form with the consistency Mr whippy ice cream; a robotic arm then injects the foamed liquid latex into an aluminum pin core mold. The pins create American latex's unique aerated cell structure.

Automated robots distribute the mixture to ensure consistency and final density. The mould is sealed and a vacuum is created to remove air and ensure the latex completely fills the mould.

The latex is then chilled at -20 ∞ Fahrenheit. Freezing (unique to the Talalay process) prevents settling and ensures a consistent cell structure.

CO2 is introduced to gel the latex, the mould is heated to 220∫ Fahrenheit to cure the latex into its final state.

Washing

Unlike other latex manufacturers, Latex International washes EVERY mattress core. The core is removed from the mould and onto on a belt that carries it through a five-stage fresh water rinsing, the only one of its kind in the industry.

High quality natural Latex is by far one of the most luxurious materials used and has a silky feel and leaves no body impressions and creates no pressure points as a natural product it is a very environmentally conscious extremely resilient to wear and offers a consistency of performance no memory foam can compete with over time.

Certified Healthy

Latex Internationalís process does not use any solvents. It does NOT damage the ozone layer. They do not use scrubbers or external filtration as we do not emit harmful elements into the air. In fact, Latex Internationalís Talalay latex is certified by Oeko-Tex (Europeís highest environmental consumer product standard) to be free of harmful substances or chemicals.

Wool has been the longest used bedding material no doubt going back to BC and with good reason wool has a natural ability to insulate regulate temperature absorb and release moisture which gives it a regain figure of 18%. Silks ability to absorb and release moisture is 12% but how many times have you seen mattress labels and descriptions boasting of the use of silk. Why when it is inferior? Often it is merely decorative ticking in the cover the only benefit is too feel if its under a non silk cover and a bedsheet there is little point to using silk.

Wool is manufactured into woven pads which is in the comfort layer, it is graded by weight but also different breeds which carry individual properties that vary breathing and insulation characteristics when you have seen over 200 samples with technical spec labels for each you realise that there is a lot more to wool than you could have imagined.

With wool the relevant information is how much is in the mattress typically you are just told the mattress contains wool on the label but a 1 foot wide 50g pad across the width is hardly worth paying for and typically once a natural material has wool in the specification the price jumps a minimum of £100.

There are mattress manufacturers that place 2 x 1ft bands across the width of the mattress and can be as low as 80gram this is sufficient to state on a mattress label and specification that it includes 'The finest natural wool'.

As far as we are concerned this is very misleading though perfectly legal, our Wentworth mattress uses a 300gram wool pad which took 3 years to source why so long? One of the cornerstones of every Healthbeds mattress is that it must be hypoallergenic. For 3 years Healthbeds sourced hypoallergenic wool samples each time having them tested to check the suppliers claims every time they failed until a New Zealand based supplier sent a sample which passed.

It may seem strange that this should happen but natural materials are not naturally hypoallergenic and the washing processes are technical and repeated many times its not easy to achieve and hence why so many suppliers failed.

So ask the following:

• What is the weight of the wool used inside the mattress?
• Is it hypoallergenic?
• Does it cover the entire sleep surface?

Cashmere is used in the cover and gives the softest feel to the Wentworth mattress.

Please remember the gauge and number of springs dictate the firmness, how ever it is also the support and comfort layers that give the feel of a mattress. We could place you on a high spring count mattress and a low count with different support and comfort layer and you can easily guess the spring count wrongly. Please don't think more springs means higher quality. Remember it is quality of all materials that counts! We have been so conditioned to comparing spec lists with price that the quality aspect is pretty much ignored despite it being far more relevant.

Manufacturers often play spec one upmanship 2000 springs is as far as any manufacturer should go any more is princess and the pea. You won't be able to tell the difference and its for catering for the consumer habit of playing 'top trumps' when choosing a mattress and if you think you can that will have more to do with the support and comfort layers.

Pocket springs are the only type we in our mattresses, providing individual support as each is seperately contained in a cloth pocket and operate independantly to give independant support. How ever the quality of each individual spring is what contributes to the quality of a mattress NOT HOW MANY THERE ARE!. So this begs the question how do you determine the quality of a spring?

Many manufacturers import Chinese compressed spring units which are typically below the quality of an English manufactured spring.

Also when you manufacture a spring for a mattress you want it to have the following qualities.

• Uniform tension in each spring across a whole spring unit ensuring uniform performance across the whole of your mattress.
• Our springs are high performance retaining tension over years of use (failure to do this results in a sagging mattress sometimes within a year) ensuring your mattress lasts as long as you would expect it to. For a pocket spring to do this it should be a high quality steel carbon nickel alloy preventing rusting and should follow the manufacturing technique explained below.
• Electrically charged and heated quality steel alloy wire during coiling ensures a constant tension with a consistent memory performance (same tension returniing 100% to manufactured state). THIS MATTERS!

This is what you can expect from a UK manufactured quality mattress pocket spring which is all that is used in our mattresses and you will appreciate even more years down the line when you will 'not' be considering replacing your mattress and your still getting a great nights sleep.

Quick reminder! The higher the gauge the thinner the spring and generally the higher quality gauges sit between 14 to 18 your open coiled or bonnell springs fall below this gauge one of several reasons why they cost and deliver less.

We have been to 4 main foam converters to discover what mattress companies either don't want to tell retailers or the consumer in order for us to understand and choose the right mattress manufacturer when memory foam is included.

What is it? (Polyurethane oil based foam) This could be a long explanation but as far as your concerened think of each cell as a soft rubber ball with a small hole in. When you place your weight on it you displace the air according to your body shape thats why you don't get pressure points that cause movement in your sleep resulting in lower quality sleep. With the abscence of pressure points and the level of individual support memory foam gives thats why it is such a good material to use.

Memory foam varies in quality like any other material and is susceptible to 'top trumps' spec comparison on labels and websites as much as any other material. The information pertaining to specification of memory foam provided by retailers usually covers only 'depth of foam' and 'density in KG per Cubic metre' which is a bit like being asked to guess the ending of a book without the last 3 chapters. If you just get 'finest quality memory foam giving a pressure point free sleep experience' then you should move on! If a seller can't be bothered to understand their product intimately and share that knowledge they have no right to ask you to part with your hard earned!

Staying with quality of materials how do you determine what is relevant to memory foam?

• First off most foam converters in China the UK and elsewhere grade their memory foam, grading is largely related to 'purity'. The majority of memory foam supplied to mattress companies contains aggregate this means chalk dust and melamine powder. Depending on how much is added determines purity and quality, begs the question why is it added?? Aggregate is added to falsely increase density so if you read 80KG density on a spec list (and we consumers are cultured to always think more is better) means it should be better than 65KG density on another. However if the 80KG is achieved with aggregate as so often it is I would rather have the 65KG of pure foam. So 'why is it added' simply to sell with seamingly more appealing spec yet in truth leaving the consumer in the dark or conned if your of a more damming disposition.
• Aggregate reduces individual cell wall strength and durability and the way it performs this means the foam breaks (it looks a bit like cellulite!) down quicker whilst it may recover its shape still you can get soft points normally around where your hips and shoulders are. And yes then your going to get aches as support disappears and you are considering another mattress. All man made foams get softer with use but you don't want this accelerated.
• So now you know you should be asking the retailer if there is any aggregate in the memory foam in the mattresses they are selling if they don't know or state its the highest quality madam' then walk away because frankly thats estate agent speak for 'I don't know'
• The measures! Depth, Density and ILD
  • Depth - Self explanatory and deeper memory foam of the same spec will feel firmer when its deeper which can throw you when you try a higher density and it feels softer.
  • Density - Measured in kilo's per cubic metre generally 30 to 110kg now again you may be thinking 110KG is the one for me but one of the key ingredients is Air! At this density there is little room for air which you displace when you are on your mattress often 110KG memory foam has a lower density on top as it is hard to get that pillow top feel at this density. Once again more is not always the best! staying between 50-90 is recommended. Now this is a central spec so if you have not been given the information you can not possibly be able to evaluate what you are paying for walk away!
  • ILD - Indentation Load Deformation is simply how stiff the foam is rated 1- 16 you should be aiming for 16 all of our memory foam is 16 this helps reduce that wrap around feel that makes it harder to move on your mattress.

In summary ask for

1. Pure memory foam with no aggregate
2. The ILD rating 16 is the aim
3. Depth and the density

If you get any blanks or blags move on!