December 10, 2006

  • Brad Pitt was only half-right

    …about mattresses.  Here’s his quote:

    The Perfect Mattress
    Don’t spend a lot of money on a big, giant mattress with double padding
    on both sides and all that. Just go out and buy a normal firm mattress.
    Then go buy the three-inch Tempur-Pedic pad, the memory foam, and put
    it on top. I’m telling you, take my tip. It’s the perfect pressure. I
    take full credit for the discovery. You will sleep in bliss forever
    more . . . unless you’ve got a six-week-old.


    Following his advice, June and I bought a foam mattress pad at Costco.  Actually, June got it for me because I mentioned how much I liked the pillow-top mattress at a recent hotel stay.  It comes with two layers: a 2.5″ memory foam layer, and a 1.5″ microfiber “down-like” layer.  When I opened the box, I found that everything had been vacuum-sealed to save space.  After opening the seals, the microfiber layer puffed out to its full glory immediately, but the memory foam remembered its squashed state and refused to expand.  Well.  The instructions said to unfold it and let it rest for 24-72 hours.  So for the next three days, there was a queen-sized foam block slowly expanding on our floor.  During that time, we put the microfiber layer on the bed, and we loved it!  At the end of the three days, we were excited to try the memory foam layer too.  We added the foam layer and slept on it for two nights.  The results?  Not good.  The memory foam sags under my hips, making me feel like I have a butt made of lead.  Let me try to describe in a picture.  Here is the standard picture used in memory foam mattress ads:

    See how the foam conforms to the person’s body?  Well, this is how it felt to me:

    So now June and I are going to remove the foam mattress pad and go back to the microfiber layer only.  Any ideas on what to do with the foam pad?  I guess we could always keep it around as a spare bed, since it feels a lot better on the ground than on our bed.

Comments (10)

  • Why not just return the whole pad and buy one with just the microfiber layer?

  • Hey John, I searched online for about an hour and couldn’t find a sub-$100 1.5″ microfiber mattress top / featherbed. I’ve read mixed reviews about natural down featherbeds, because of the smell and the feathers poking through…

  • i have a foam mattress from costco, without the microfiber layer. i like it alot, but after a year i think the foam is starting to sag a little. i think it was worth the $100

  • so apparently not everyone likes the tempur-pedic, although, my parents and my best bud swear by them. i hear that feather beds are pretty awesome, but i think you have to keep shifting them around. i don’t know. but i think we’re going to get this thing at costco bc it’s a pretty good deal.

  • we were going to get the tempurpedic pad, but we ended up getting a great closeout deal on the whole burrito tempur-pedic mattress. At first, I HATED It. Hated, hated, hated it for the same reasons you mentioned, and then hated it some more because it still cost more than a regular mattress. But now…I love it. I can’t sleep as well on anything else. It was the BEST bed to sleep on when pregnant. I don’t know what changed, but I love love love it now.

    I realize that wasn’t a tremendously profound insight…but thought you might like to know. Maybe hang onto it until June gets preggo

  • According to your picture, it could be that most of your mass is contained in your butt. j/k.

  • very impressive glutes, ed! 

  • Oh, strad had the exact some experience. I think he got the whole tempura-pedic bed and returned it for a normal one!

    But those things feel soooo comfortable in the stores!

  • Hey Ed-apparently, it takes a while for your body to get used to the memory foam, but as jwkcheng said, it wasn’t worth having several weeks of aches and pains to make it through the transition, so i just returned the bed and got a regular one. you could either try and go through the adjustment experience, but if you aren’t willing to do so, i’d use it for guests instead of an air mattress.

  • The foam is soooo good! I’ll buy the pad from you for my sister if you want to get rid of it :)

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