Are you looking for a mattress pad for your bed? If the reason is to help you sleep better, then you have two main choices of memory foam topper – those made from artificial memory foam (visco elastic polyurethane foam) and those made from natural latex memory foam. It isn’t so much that one type is better than the other – it’s more that both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. In the end, what you choose depends on your own needs.
(Artificial) Visco Elastic Memory Foam Mattress Pad
This material was developed for NASA in the 1960s. Officially, it was independent of the space program. On the other hand, the timing was awfully convenient for a mere coincidence. Two decades later, NASA finally released their memory foam technology to the public domain for full commercial exploitation. We can now see this material in use for hospital beds, especially for patients who cannot move on their own. Because these memory foam mattresses partially mold themselves to the human body, they help to reduce pressure and bedsores for the patients.
Advantages
A memory foam mattress, even a memory foam topper pad, is very comfortable to sleep on. Its only rival are high-end water beds and air beds. Even the best spring mattresses come in a distant second.
Memory foam is very, very dense. This results in two advantages:
- A memory foam mattress pad will last you 20 years which is very long, even longer than the 10 years of normal spring beds.
- A memory foam mattress is free from dust mites. Due to the density of the foam, the pores are too small so there is nowhere for the mites to hide.
Disadvantages
The first major problem with visco elastic polyurethane foam (memory foam) is that the production process is very unstable. That accounts for its high cost, even though the technology is now nearly half-a-century old. When NASA first released it patents, only one company took up the challenge – Fagerdala World Foam – the company which makes the Tempur memory foam mattress topper. Today, as the technology for making artificial memory foam begins to mature, we are starting to see other brands of memory foam toppers on the market, e.g. Serta Ultimate memory foam. This competition is finally starting to drive prices of memory foam pad products down.
Visco elastic memory foam has a second major problem, i.e. it is extremely inflammable. In the US, there are state and Federal laws mandating that memory foam toppers (and other memory foam products) be treated with flame retardant chemicals. In fact, this ruling extends to all bedding products. These flame-retardant chemicals have been known to cause breathing difficulties to sensitive people.
A third problem is that aging memory foam toppers are known to give off volatile organic chemicals. These gasses can be toxic to some people, causing varying degrees of irritation to their nose, throat and lungs.
Sleeping on a memory foam pad can be warm. This is due to the high density foam which prevents the air circulation that occurs in normal mattresses. One counter is to sleep with a lighter blanket or comforter.
Natural Latex Memory Foam Topper
Latex is made from the sap of the rubber tree. The main source comes from South East Asia, where there are entire plantations devoted to planting rubber. While there are plantations which are extremely large, many of these plantations are small plots of land owned by poor families. These indigenuous rubber industries provide many thousands of poor locals with employment.
When used to make (memory) foam, latex is whipped and treated until it becomes foamy. Modern latex foam is made using the Talalay process, which ensures that the rubber foam is of high consistency.
Advantages
All the good points that have been said about synthetic memory foam mattresses also apply to latex foam mattress pads:
- They are very comfortable
- They last a long time, much longer than normal spring-coil mattresses
- They are free of dust mites
However, they do have one advantage over visco elastic polyurethane foam – latex memory foam toppers are cheaper.
Disadvantages
While there are many plantations producing rubber, there are only four factories using the Talalay process to produce latex foam, and only two of those factories make all-natural latex foam. That means not all latex foam mattress toppers are 100% natural. So some so-called latex foam pads could contain synthetic components which could also give off volatile chemicals. Even in the case of 100% natural latex, there could also be volatile chemicals released in the long run because one of the known chemicals for stabilizing rubber is ammonia.
Like synthetic memory foam mattress toppers, latex mattress toppers that are brought into the US or made in the US are also subject to treatment with flame-retardant chemicals. That means even if your latex mattress pad is labelled 100% natural, because of the anti-flame treatment … it can no longer be called 100% natural.
While some latex mattress topper companies like to claim that their products allow you to sleep cooler than memory foam mattress toppers, this claim seems unlikely to be true – not if they are using high-quality latex foam. After all, whether the memory foam is made from polyurethane or whether it is made from all-natural rubber, it needs to be turned into a very dense foam. It this high foam density that makes memory foam so comfortable to sleep on. And it is this high density that makes sleeping on memory foam rather warm.
Conclusion
So which one is better – the memory foam topper or the latex memory foam mattress pad? In reality, both are very comfortable … when made of the real stuff. With visco elastic memory foam, this is simple – Fagerdala is a known manufacturer of real Tempurpedic memory foam topper bedding, and so is Serta with their Serta memory foam mattress pad. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said of latex memory foam. A fake could feel very good – at first. But would it last the 20 or 30 years of the real thing?