The benefits of memory foam mattresses are well-known these days, but when it comes to choosing from the many available brands what should you be looking out for?
Memory foam technology has developed significantly over recent years, and there are now a number of premium quality established brands producing high performance ranges. The best quality mattress manufacturers follow a largely similar approach to their products, in that their mattresses are layered compositions made up of a supportive base, an air-flow layer and of course the all-important visco elastic memory foam. It is this careful combination of materials in good quality memory foam mattresses that provide the supportive, pressure-relieving performance that is the hallmark of the technology.
A reliable quality element to look for when shopping for a foam mattress is the ‘density’ rating. This value is an indicator of how effective the memory foam is, and how it will perform ongoing. Density is usually represented as a weight value, such as 85kg/m3 or 5.3lb. This particular value would mean that the memory foam layer is high density, and therefore premium quality. A lower density variation, for instance 50kg/m3, won’t provide the same performance and is more likely to sag after a short period of use.
When a mattress manufacturer is producing good quality high density products you will always be able to find this information on their website or in store – explained in this format. When it becomes difficult to find this information, or the company passes it off as unimportant when asked about it – or perhaps uses a different, unfamiliar set of parameters – it is safe to assume that their products aren’t using a premium grade of temperature-sensitive foam.
Although high quality mattresses represent a sound investment that will deliver many years of blissful sleep, there are unfortunately many cheap, low quality versions available that don’t offer anything approaching the same performance and longevity. These mattresses typically use a minimally thin layer of memory foam, or a single block of foam that doesn’t actually qualify as memory foam by any reasonable standards, for instance, basic polyurethane foam. Some variations even use a bizarre combination of memory foam and a traditional pocket spring interior, managing to create a mattress that uses two incompatible approaches with very little success.
Whichever form they actually come in, these mattresses invariably have a low density rating, with little or no ‘reflex’ attribute. The result is a poorly supportive mattress that will offer a below satisfactory performance and rapidly deteriorate from there. The irony with these ‘cheap’ mattresses is that although they’re markedly less expensive than high quality alternatives they will need to be replaced many times over in the period that a premium mattress would comfortably last. Combined with the low quality performance throughout, the arguments for buying a cheap foam mattress over a high quality one just don’t stack up.
So, when it comes to choosing your mattress, be sure to look out for the layered composition and density rating to see if your options represent good quality choices, and remember that the cheaper end of the market invariably contains poor quality imitation mattresses that will let you down, quite literally!