My boyfriend and I were sleeping on an air mattress a year ago and decided we wanted a nontoxic mattress. We plunged into the confusing world of researching mattresses online and created a spreadsheet listing 15 companies and all the pros and cons of each. When we eventually found DIY Natural Bedding they came out at the top of the list because their 9″ latex layers (three 3″ layers) mattress was one of the most affordable ones available. Also, Deborah was amazingly great at getting to the bottom of what is really going on with natural bedding suppliers and also was so great at answering all my many questions, even researching the answer and then getting back to me if she didn’t have the answer on hand. At the time, I noted that this company is “very trustworthy, does good research.”

I had a number of concerns  – I was concerned the mattress cover would inhibit the natural way the latex bends around the body; it would be a shame to spend so much on latex and then ruin it with a tight fitted, stiff cover. I am happy to report that the organic cotton knit mattress cover is soft and stretchy and contours to the latex perfectly.

Another concern I had was smell because I had bought a latex topper once that smelled really strong for a couple weeks at least. With the latex from DIY Natural Bedding there was never any smell, not even when it first arrived. I am extremely chemically sensitive and I have not ever had any issues with this bed.

We had a hell of a time figuring out the densities to order, and we ended up having to get some replacements. Deborah’s policy allowing 2 months for replacements was great because for various reasons we took a long time figuring out what was going to work.

We got the wool batting to place under the cover but we have never used it because we don’t like the way it sticks to the latex – we tend to rearrange the latex every once in awhile just to see how it feels and we don’t like pulling the wool off the latex every time (not much sticks it’s just I realize I like things really clean and my personal preference would be to have the wool encased in something). We may get some fabric and sew a wool topper with the wool at some point, or a blanket. I made a huge pillow out of some of it, which is really divine, although it does need fluffing up every once in a while.

The mattress is super comfortable just with the knit cover, although I know we need to get something else to protect it from spills and also to offer more general protection like from oxygen. We probably would have been better off with the quilted ticking – I was worried it wouldn’t stretch enough but now that I see how the organic cotton cloth stretches probably the quilted ticking would be stretchy enough too.

And just fyi, I weigh 230 and my boyfriend weighs 220 lbs and what ended up working out for both of us is the bottom layer firm, and both the middle and top layers extra firm. We hate the soft and medium as they compress too much and feel extremely hard, but I guess for people weighing less they would be great.

We love our mattress! – H.H.