The idea behind a mattress review is to help you determine which mattress style or brand you want. You want to learn whether the mattress is quality or cheap (and I don’t mean inexpensive), offers support or leaves you unsupported, and what it’s made of. You can choose from innerspring, memory foam, latex, foam, and viscoelastic foam mattresses, for just a start. Then there is the cotton, wool and water bed mattress to choose from. Look at lots of mattress reviews and test lots of beds before making your decision.
The Internet is a great place to find a mattress review. Too good, perhaps; there are more than 2,500,000 Google hits on the search term “mattress review”! This article will help you narrow your search quite a bit.
A number of consumer research and opinion sites include mattress reviews. You can choose from professional testing and reporting services or sites that let consumers voice their own opinions in a mattress review forum. You will also find mattress sellers who claim to present unbiased mattress reviews; approach those with caution.
Consumer Reports is the most popular professional source of mattress reviews. In fact, Consumer Reports has received over 3,300 consumer requests for mattress reviews since 2001, more than any other category of consumer products, except cars. The reason for such consumer confusion, the editors say, is that a mattress is essentially a “black box” to consumers. You can’t see what’s inside, what makes one mattress different from another. Add to that the fact that mattress model names vary from store to store, and prices vary widely, and you have a mattress market in which it is very difficult to find comparable information.
To cut through all this fog, Consumer Reports hired two retired mattress industry professionals “to tear apart 18 beds from Sealy, Serta, Simmons, and Spring Air, the top-selling brands”. The objective was to find the real differences between low- and high-priced models. This comprehensive mattress review requires a subscription to Consumer Reports. A one-month subscription is only $5.95, a bargain for so much time- and money-saving expertise.
ePinions.com is a great source for consumer-written mattress reviews. In addition to specific mattress reviews, there are many articles written by consumers and industry professionals about the construction of mattresses and what to look for when shopping. These articles often go beyond the physical qualities of mattresses to discuss what firmness is best for various body types and physical conditions, among other topics.
ConsumerSearch.com features a mattress review of mattress reviews. It summarizes the findings and features of several other mattress review sources including ePinions, Consumer Reports, and Amazon.com customer reviews. It includes mattress reviews and advice articles from unlikely sources such as WebMD.com the Chicago SouthTown newspaper, and even the British medical journal Lancet. For variety of opinions and concise coverage, it’s hard to beat the ConsumerSearch.com mattress review.
Some mattress review sites are sneaky fronts for sellers of mattresses. BestMattressReviews.com is one such place. It “reviews” only foam mattresses, memory foam mattresses, and viscoelastic foam mattresses. It mentions vendors of foam mattress products such as Tempur-Pedic, Sleep Aid, Abed, and Bergad. It provides links to ““breaking news” about foam mattress products. Finally, it provides links to the sites of many foam mattress retailers.
eBay has a user-written products guide section that includes 96 mattress reviews written by sellers. A large number of these guides seem to be only remotely related to purchasing a mattress, such as “31 New Uses for Old Clothing”. But there are guides to buying traditional innerspring, latex, and other types of foam mattresses.
Hopefully, these tips will save you time finding the mattress review that you need. Happy shopping!