It may sound cheesy, but a good mattress can actually change your life. That’s because you spend somewhere in between 6 to 9 hours every day on a mattress (if you like to live healthy and get enough sleep, that is). In about 10 years, you’ll be spending 26,000 hours on average on your mattress, and that’s just for sleeping. What about reading? Watching TV? Reading the news? Browsing Facebook on your phone? You get where this is going.
You can diet and exercise all your want, it’s not living healthy if you aren’t getting the right amount of correct sleep. Why correct? Because there is such a thing as sleeping badly, in which case, you wake up feeling more tired than you did when you went to bed. And, contrary to what some people may think, we blame the mattress. Of course, eating half a loaf of bed and 5 chocolate chip cookies before jumping into bed won’t contribute to a good night’s sleep, but the mattress is the one to blame when you wake up with sore muscles, back pains and aching shoulders.
A Closer Look
In today’s standoff, we’re going to review two mattress models that are equally as good, but address different sleeping needs and different types of sleepers. The My Green Mattress – Natural Escape model is a product that gathers organic and natural materials and an innerspring layer that creates the responsiveness you need when you share your bed with a partner. The Purple Mattress, on the other hand, houses a very interesting layer of hyper-elastic polymer that creates responsive columns for better body support, while also creating air channels that dissipate heat and provide the sleeper with a much more cooling effect.
You might be interested in other products: Hope Latex Mattress by My Green Mattress Review
A Breakdown of My Green Mattress – Natural Escape Model
Construction of the My Green Mattress
This 11-inch mattress has a rather odd construction compared to other mattresses that fall within the same price range. Typically, a comfortable mattress has at least 2 layers that are supported by a base, but this one only features two layers together. Even so, this doesn’t seem to compromise the qualities that one likes to see in a mattress. Before moving on with dissecting the layers, we should mention that My Green Mattress is all about alleviating allergy symptoms by providing a natural product to sleep on.
Natural Escape is one of their products that’s handcrafted by using natural and organic materials. It is no secret that the combination of latex and innerspring is there to provide durability to the product. As you will come to understand later on, latex is one of the most durable materials while innerspring, even if it gives some people the chills, can be quite comfortable if the system is correctly built.
Top Layer – Organic Cotton
The beige cover of the Natural Escape mattress has a subtle design that makes it very pleasant to the touch. It’s also comfortable to lay on, although you’ll most likely add a sheet or an elastic mattress cover, to protect the bed. The cover is made from organic cotton, because My Green Mattress is all about delivering natural products. The all-natural wool included in the fabric combination is another statement that backs the quality of this organic mattress.
A little bit of research revealed that the product is tested at the UC Davis Animal Toxicology Lab, to make sure it doesn’t contain any harmful chemicals like pesticides or herbicides.
Second Layer – Natural Dunlop Latex
Right underneath the cover, you can find a 3-inch layer of natural Dunlop Latex. So far, so good, but what does this mean? First of all, latex is a very durable material, even more durable than foam. This should automatically add a couple more years to the lifespan of the product. Second, it ensures us that there is very little off-gassing, as there are virtually no volatile organic compound emissions.
Third Layer – Coil Spring System
The rest of the 8 inches have been invested in a responsive and bouncy coil spring system. These coils are wrapped individually, which is a huge step forward for spring mattresses. This means that, since the coils are separated from one another, they won’t react as a single unit when faced with body pressure.
Your average spring mattress has coils that are connected and when pressure is applied on one side of the mattress, it’s felt all across the surface. As you can imagine, this feature is priceless when you share your bed with a partner and one of your is always feeling restless during the night. The construction of this layer automatically leads to great motion absorbing properties.
Firmness of a My Green Mattress
Thanks to the layer of Dunlop latex, the mattress is medium is terms of firmness. However, it’s important to mention that it provides very good support for people with a lot of weight. If you prefer a plushier mattress, this is not the right choice for you. In order to better understand the comfort and firmness of the My Green Mattress, we have to talk about coil gauge. Natural Escape had divided its firmness into 3 separate areas, as a consequence of the fact that the manufacturer actually understood that each body part creates a different pressure point.
How does this work, exactly? Simple: the upper and lower body parts are supported by a 15.5 coil gauge, while the middle area is represented by a 14.5 one. This means that the pelvic area, which naturally sinks in deeper into the mattress and thus needs more support, can actually benefit from it.
Feel of a My Green Mattress
Thanks to the generous layer of innerspring, the Natural Escape mattress is very bouncy. This is a characteristic that fussy sleepers can benefit from, as pressured parts of the surface will quickly return to their original shape, allowing movement without difficulty. If you push down against the mattress, you can feel how responsive it is.
Even if the mattress has a medium to firm fill, the lumbar support provided is definitely a wise move on behalf of My Green Mattress. As mentioned above, the lumbar support is provided by the 14.5 coil gauge (the lower the coil gauge is, the firmer the mattress becomes). Of course, we can’t end this section without reminding everyone about the smooth and high-quality feel provided by the cover that blends cotton and wool.
Unique Features – My Green Mattress
Construction
My Green Mattress took a bold gamble… and won. Rarely do we see a successful combination between latex and innerspring that manages to provide just the right amount of support. Both of these layers work together to provide the responsiveness needed to easily get in and out of bed. The individually wrapped coils offer a minimum amount of motion transfer, which is great news for people who don’t sleep alone.
A Breakdown of the Purple Mattress
Construction of the Purple Mattress
With a total height of 9.5 inches, the Purple mattress includes a lot of memory foam layers. Each of them has rather unique properties that, once blended together, act as a responsive, comfortable and pressure relieving unit.
Top Cover – Responsive Knit
The cover of the mattress is made from a combination of Lycra, viscose and polyester. All of these put together results in a cover that’s soft to the touch and has breathable properties to ensure the coolness of hot sleepers. Since Lycra is known for being a material with stretch properties, it really helps ensure that heat and moisture are wicked away from your body. There’s a reason why Lycra is often used in creating athletic clothing.
First Layer – Purple Smart Comfort Grid
There is so much to be said about the comfort layer that falls beneath the cover of the Purple Mattress. Made of hyper-elastic polymer, this layer measures 2 inches in height and excels in how well it can respond to pressure. This, in turn, gives the mattress a considerable amount of bounce, which should allow you to toss and turn as much as you want without having difficulties in doing go.
The layer itself has a grid structure that’s made of polymer columns. This can help support your body up to a specific point. When that threshold is reached, the columns allow the layer to sink in and provide proper body support. Since the columns create air pockets in between them, it allows heat to pass through and give a cooling sensation to the sleeper.
Second Layer – Plush Comfort Foam
This layer is made from poly foam that measures 3.5 in height. This helps transitions between the layer of polymer columns above and the base below.
Third Layer – Support Foam
Every good mattress has a base layer that supports all the other layers above it. The Purple mattresses’ base measures 4 inches in height and features high density poly foam that withstands pressure.
Firmness of the Purple Mattress
Whenever you read reviews that talk about the firmness of a mattress, you should always sleep in mind that every person will feel firmness differently. There are several factors contributing to how mattress firmness is felt by each individual, factors like his/her weight or favorite sleeping position. When you sleep on the side, you will feel that the mattress is firmer than when you’re sleeping on your back.
On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the softest level and 10 being the firmest, the Purple mattress is ranked somewhere in between 6 and 7. If you are a light person, chances are your body won’t apply enough pressure on the first layer to actually exceed the mentioned threshold and activate the responsiveness of the polymer columns. This means that you will feel the mattress firmer than it actually is.
Feel of the Purple Mattress
To determine how a Purple mattress feels, you will need to experiment with sitting and lying on it in different positions. Lying on your back, you will feel very little pressure, as the layers inside the mattress will do a decent job in evenly distributing your weight across the surface. There is very little sinkage, unless you are a heavyweight person. The polymer layer provides a great deal of response and if you’ve owned or tested other mattresses before, you will most likely feel the difference.
Even when you’re resting on your side, the pressure increases a bit in the hips and shoulders area, but not too much as to considering it disturbing. Resting on your stomach, the Purple mattress acts the same as it does when you’re lying on your back. If you’re interested in edge support because you like, for one reason on another, to sit on the side of the bed, you should know that the Purple mattress does sink in a bit. However, that is a common trait of mattresses made mostly out of foam.
Unique Features – Purple Mattress
Purple Smart Comfort Grid
As you may have noticed, the purple grid that lies right underneath the mattresses’ cover is quite special, since it’s not a feature common to beds. This layer was designed with 3 main goals in mind. The first goal was to create a mattress that can easily adapt to your body’s natural shape and to make sure that pressure points are not painful and won’t disturb your balance. Which leads us to the second goal: motion transfer.
When you’re sharing a bed with someone else, it’s important to have a mattress that’s able to absorb movement pressure so that the motion of a person won’t disturb the sleep of the other. Last, but not least, the third goal is met by the breathable quality of the Purple mattress. Since the second layer is made from polymer columns that create air channels, it’s easy for the construction to draw heat away from your body and leave you feeling cool.
Which One To Get
My Green Mattress – Natural Escape
There a lot of very interesting features that will place the Natural Escape mattress at the top of some people’s preference list. First of all, we have to give kudos to My Green Mattress for designing a product with allergy sufferers in mind. The combination or natural and organic materials are also a delight for people who are looking to surround themselves with eco-friendly products.
If you take a look at its construction and think “Ewww… coils…”, you’d be judging a book by its cover. Truth is that the Natural Escape mattress has managed to successfully create a bouncy product, while providing different areas of support for the different body parts that need them. This means that your mattress will be softer in the lower and upper side of your body, while your back and bottom will relax on a firmness more suitable for them.
Purple Mattress
The Purple mattress is clearly a product designated for combinations sleepers. The mattress seems to be located right at the border between soft and firm, creating great pressure support for people who like to switch from one sleeping position to another. While there is a little bit of firmness felt when resting on the side, it’s neglectable. However, if you like sleeping on the side and are super lightweight, the mattress could start to feel uncomfortable if the gel in the first layer doesn’t sink in. Thanks to the air columns inside the first layer, the mattress is perfectly capable of creating a cool sleeping environment because it doesn’t retain heat.
If bounciness is a quality that you appreciate in a mattress, you may want to give the Purple one a chance. The hyper-elastic polymer will make sure that the bed is responsive, to ease the sleep movement.
My Green Mattress VS Purple Mattress Comparison
| My Green Mattress – Natural Escape |
Purple Mattress | |
|---|---|---|
| Layers Used |
|
|
| Height | 11 inches | 9.5 inches |
| Firmness | Medium-firm | Medium to firm |
| Motion Transfer | Fair | Good |
| Breathability | Good | Good |
| Trial Period | 100 Night Sleep Trial | 100 Night Sleep Trial |
| Warranty | 10 Year Warranty | 10 Year Warranty |
| Pricing (Queen) | $1,299 | $1399 CAD (about $1,080) |
| Shipping | Free within the continental US | Free to the continental US. |
Conclusion
There is no such thing as the best mattress in the world. However, there is the best mattress for you, which means that each one of the 2 mattresses we spoke about today could become your new best friend. Both the Natural Escape and the Purple model have very good bounciness and responsiveness. If you are, however, a hot sleeper, the Purple mattress does a much better job in allowing airflow to pass through the columns found in the first layer.
Side sleepers will find greater comfort in the Purple mattress, provided their bodies have enough weight to push the first layer’s threshold into providing the necessary support. On the other hand, if you’re suffering from allergies and have very sensitive skin, the Natural Escape mattress is better for you. The combination between wool and cotton that’s used in the construction of the cover will be both soft and soothing.