Mattress Forum

As far as anyone else being able to make the same claim about their latex -- that might be true, but I don't think one can assume that it is.  I have known personally of instances when components (not mattress components) were manufactured for a customer to meet specific requirements set by that customer's purchase contract -- and other customers of that supplier, even though theoretically buying the same item, didn't necessarily receive components manufactured to the same specs -- so that might or might not apply in this situation.

I believe that their "organic" sheep live in Northern California.

I think you always have to kind of take marketing claims a little lightly -- and consider the source and circumstances of each.  In general, I feel about them about the way I do about political claims.  As long as politicians say things like "My opponent favors massive tax rises to pour into wasteful extravagance, while I am for essential revenue enhancement to be prudently dispersed for the public good" they don't bother me -- when they begin to venture into outright lies, that's something else.

Your mention of the cover does remind me of a little thing that seems to me significant -- though I won't know how helpful it is until/unless we try it.  But they have an attachable topper -- that seems to me a very good idea, and I'm surprised that, as common as toppers are, there aren't more provisions for securing them.  In their case, there are attachment locations built onto the mattress, but I don't think it would be hard to have some sort of simple, inexpensive (ha!) harness that slid under any mattress and secured the topper.  I doubt that it's an issue for many people, but for adjustable beds, and for people, especially older people, who kind of scoot on and off the bed and tend to pull the mattress a little off the base anyway, topper attachment seems to me a good idea.

I agree about the price, but I haven't seen other sources that seemed to be offering the same alleged level of product for a much better price.  Having inspected most of the mattress makers in the US -- at least remotely -- you probably have. [g]

JLJ

Phoenix

I also like both the material they use in their cover and it's design.

If I don't get a call back soon from Bedrooms and more, I'll call them again. I'm curious as well now that you brought it up.

Phoenix

She needs a "rubber" mattress...Greensleep is the way to go (or similar organic product WITH CERTIFICATIONS)...

Stay away from memory foam if she has limited mobility

I think we're long past that point mr "expert".

Did you actually take the time to read this thread?

Phoenix

The topper is 25 ILD

The core is 25 over 35 over 25.

They will also customize it and what she did was switch out the 35 for a 25 so her whole mattress is 25.

She also said that she could have got an N2 topper (softer probably in the range of about 20) but they can only do the sculpted layer with N3 (25) and she really liked the sculpting.

She actually told me that she thought the N2 was around 14 (this came from her not OMI) but I don't believe that and I don't believe that LI makes a 14 in the natural. The SLAB website says different as well.

Hope that helps.

Phoenix

What I would miss is the progressive support that comes from a softer latex over a slightly firmer one and I would also want the top a little softer. I do agree though that it does "average out" to about the same as mine but I doubt it would be as suitable for either me or my other half. I think she would have even more problems with it as a softer top was even more important to her than to me.

We did try a single slab of 28 and 32 ILD and they were both too firm for both of us without a softer topper.

Having said that the OMI with 25 over 25 (over of course 35 and 25) did feel very "plush" but part of that would have been the convoluted layer and the cover making it feel a little softer than 25. We liked it best in it's softest configuration.

It's sort of cool that I know now that one of the first mattresses we lay on and really liked is so close in a way to the one we ended up with :)

Maybe I should have stopped there and just duplicated the Terra ... but at that time I didn't even know that was really possible ... and I would have "missed out" on most of the research that I did.

Phoenix

Something I've begun to wish that mattress listings routinely put into their specs is mattress weight.  I think most of the online ones don't because they often build shipping into their price.  I really began thinking about it wondering how difficult some mattresses would be to flip frequently.   Mom likes her mattress flipped every time her sheets are changed and has enough stuff in her bedroom close to the bed (so she can reach it without having to get up) that one has to be able to keep control of a mattress when flipping it -- can't just flop it over so it lands generally on the bed.  And because of the size and shape, it can be harder to handle a mattress than to handle a smaller object of the same weight.  After I began wondering about weight, I began thinking that weight would be useful because in some instances in might be a useful indicator that there's something different in two mattresses with specs that seem similar.

As far as OMI relative to their competitors -- we're still considering other possibilities and welcome any and all suggestions -- and agree that OMI's price is probably higher than it should be.  At this point, if I did what I feel most inclined to do, I'd open Mom's spare mattress (she actually has two, bought at the same time, of the jello type she loved for years that I described originally), examine spare mattress's innards, order some supplement for the latex I think is in there, and close it up again.  I suspect I could make her a mattress she'd like as well as any we'd buy, and it would certainly be a better price.  However, considering the length of my Do Immediately #1, Do Immediately #2 and Do Immediately #3 lists, and that Mom is 86 and has rocks in her bed right now -- I don't think that's the way to go.  Plus I'm not sure of the quality of latex that's in the current mattresses, even if there is latex in there.  They were not inexpensive mattresses when purchased, but they have had a lot of "mileage" put on them. So it seemed that the best alternative would be to find a really good, flippable mattress that would make her comfortable right away.

I know that she'll be very unlikely to say she's unhappy with a new mattress or needs a different one, after we get something -- so a very high probability of quality is important.  I can't really judge by something like lying a new mattress myself, because a mattress she likes feels appallingly soft to me -- so I have to look at specs, reputation, and reports of soft bed folks.

As discussed in other threads, some criticize OMI -- as far as I can see, not so much on the grounds that what they say isn't true, as on the grounds that they at least imply that they are more unique than they are in order to justify higher prices.  That has a ring of truth -- and information about others who do what OMI does as well as OMI does or better is certainly welcome.  Even if we ultimately buy a Terra by OMI, alternative information will be useful to others -- and as I said, we've made no definite decision yet.

But another side of the discussion that I wonder about -- only wonder because I really know very little about the mattress industry -- is whether the "we're just as organic as OMI and the organic standards need to be defined" type arguments might also be driven by something not apparent.  As I recall, some years back, organic food was produced by small growers that took great pains -- in their own field being as particular as OMI allegedly is -- to make their products high quality and as safe as possible.  When the desire for organic food became mainstream enough that it began to really command higher prices, pressure arose to "define" organic food more precisely -- which turned out not so much to be in the interest of protecting the consumer as it was to enable larger producers to label foods as "organic" -- and raise their prices -- without the necessity of being as picky about production as the former smaller organic producers were.  The above oversimplifies the organic issue with regard to food -- and greatly oversimplifies with regard to OMI and organic production -- but I wonder whether there might not be an element of truth in it.

My impression of OMI is that, while they have their problems, they are more analogous to the early small producers of organic foods than they are to the giant "organic" ag producers.  They provide enough potentially refutable specifics about the measures they take to ensure quality -- which have not been publicly refuted -- that I'm inclined to think their claims are largely true.  While OMI may imply that they are unique, when they are not entirely so -- I suspect that it's true that they are enormously more careful and exacting in their standards than most of their competitors.  I recall a thread in this forum not long ago, when a manufacturer was angry about alleged misrepresentations of their product here, but when asked to correct the data, said "we do not release that information, contact us privately".  There are an awful lot of producers, I think, who grouse at suggestions that their product is not just as good as any other, but who are unwilling to use the obvious remedy -- to say exactly what components and what assembly techniques make their product worth buying.

While I think avoiding unnecessary chemicals is good, I'm not so much personally interested in OMI being "pure" and "organic" as I am in the increased quality control, compared to many manufacturers, that I think probably results from their attempts to be genuinely organic.  I suspect that competition may pull their price down somewhat -- but if so, I hope it is through others either becoming -- or demonstrating that they already are -- using the same care OMI does and offering a better priced product, rather than by large enitities (perhaps behind the scenes) redefining "organic" so that they can claim to be producing just as "organic" a product without having to take the same care.  Certification standards can be beneficial to the public -- but they can also be -- and sadly often are -- used instead as a tool to confuse consumers and to make it difficult for a small business to compete with a megabusiness, by defining the small business's good product as not different from the big business's sloppy one, or by setting complex certification standards that are unaffordable for a small business to meet, even though their product may be better than that of the megabusiness.

JLJ <~~ wondering whether getting a few dozen geese and beginning to collect for a big featherbed for Mom isn't the best solution

While latex is certainly an expensive material in comparison to other materials, it is not nearly as expensive as most people seem to think and in general it is hard to justify the cost of upper end mattresses (read expensive) that use automated manufacturing methods in general or buy "parts" from other suppliers, rebrand them as something else, and then assemble them with a story attached. This is why I like using smaller manufacturers where the supply chain is much smaller, who do put more personal care into what they produce, and whose story and "branding" is much more honest. Some smaller manufacturers though also "ride on" perception and "other people's pricing" and charge way too much for their products so a little research and a few phone calls are essential.

I wonder why if so many manufacturers can produce a good quality queen size 9" latex mattress with a good quality wool/cotton ticking that sells for around $1000 - $1400 (perhaps a little more for natural Talalay but not much), then what justifies the cost of a mattress that charges double or even triple that using the same or substantially the same materials and manufacturing methods. I would even pay more than that for a manufacturer that offered something that created greater value to me (in the ticking, construction methods etc) ... and would gladly go up in price if the value was there (hand built methods or even materials that use special more expensive processing methods) ... but in most cases it isn't. Most manufacturers use materials that are widely available under different "names" to anyone else and then attach a story to their name which doubles the cost. Most of these stories have "a little truth" but are at best spin and at worst completely untrue. Many manufacturers put more effort into perpetuating their story to justify their prices than they do in making their mattresses. We the consumer pay for this. Did you know for example that Simmons and Serta are owned by the same people and that they keep these two companies "separate" for primarily marketing reasons? The "big 3" is really the "big 2".

I was really surprised at how widely available good quality latex mattresses are in the price range I mentioned. I thought at first that "there must be something in their material or methods" that justified the higher prices of some ... but came to the conclusion after a lot of research that there really wasn't. This is just as true with all the materials used in mattresses. The suppliers of those materials are usually willing "accomplices" in the rebranding/story telling process and even sell their products with "ideas" of how to build a good story that creates perceived and "unique" value as opposed to real value. They too in most cases are more concerned with the margin of their customers (mattress manufacturers and retailers) than they are with the actual value of their product. I was a little surprised at how open they are about this in their marketing. Very few manufacturers differentiate themselves on differences that represent "true value".

Overall ... I think it would be fair to say I was rather "astounded" at what I have seen in my research travels ... and I don't get "astounded" so easily.

Phoenix