While fiberglass makes mattresses more fire-resistant, it can irritate the skin and even worsen asthma symptoms. As such, some people prefer beds without fiberglass, and of course, the attributes and quality of the options that fit that description will vary.
You can see that in the bed sizes available, materials used in the construction, bed thickness, firmness, extra features, and finally, the warranty. Also, like all other mattresses, these features will determine your sleeping and overall user experience. As such, if you’re looking for the best mattress without fiberglass, you’ll have to take a keener look at each of these features in each potential purchase. Fortunately, our team has already tested multiple mattresses that fit the bill, and we recommend the options listed below for purchase.
Other features: 100-night trial, breathable & cooling, responsive & supporting
One of the best memory foam mattresses without fiberglass in the market is the Amerisleep AS3. It’s a 12” bed with zoned support, so you get the right amount of pressure relief and sinkage depending on the weight of each body part. Also, the Bio-pur memory foam offers an open-cell design which, of course, enhances breathability and makes cooler sleep a reality. It’s available for all standard frame sizes and provides medium-firm support.
The Amerisleep AS3 is an excellent pick if you want a responsive medium-firm mattress with zonal support and great warranty and trial terms.
Other features: 101-night sleep trial, suits all sleepers, 7-layer sleep system, infused cooling gel, advanced airflow
Another medium-firm bed to consider is the Puffy Royal Mattress. However, it features hybrid construction and is about 2” thicker than its predecessor. It comes with multiple foam layers placed on a contour-adapt coil base which is great for airflow. Notably, one of the foam layers also offers excellent airflow. Consequently, the inclusion of cooling gel in the bed coupled with the enhanced airflow allows for better temperature regulation throughout the night.
This bed is great for users who want a medium-firm hybrid mattress with exceptional temperature regulation capabilities.
Other features: 90-night home trial, 100% GOTS certified, organic materials
The 10” Naturepedic Chorus Organic Mattress is another hybrid to make it onto the list. It has both a micro-coil and full-size coil layer in addition to cotton and wool batting. Consequently, while it doesn’t have flame-retardant fiberglass in its construction, it more than makes up for it by only using organic materials, including in the cover. The mattress is even GOTS certified, and due to the medium-firm rating, it’s almost universally comfortable.
The Naturepedic Chorus differentiates itself from the competition by offering a hybrid design with edge support and organic materials.
Other features: 120-night trial, organic cotton cover, hypoallergenic materials, OEKO-TEX certified
The next hybrid option with organic materials to make it onto the list is the Nolah Natural 11. Notably, both the cotton cover and the wool layer underneath it are GOTS certified. These are followed by Talalay latex layers before you get to the coil system. Even on the underside, you find another wool layer which is excellent for both breathability and cooling. Also, wool is naturally flame retardant; hence fiberglass can easily be excluded from the construction.
This mattress differentiates itself from others without fiberglass construction by using wool as the flame retardant, all while using hypoallergenic organic materials.
Other features: 100-night sleep trial, handcrafted in the USA, GOTS certified
Another potential purchase is the Plushbeds The Natural Bliss Latex Mattress. It’s one of two options listed that allows you to choose the thickness. It’s made mostly of latex, and the manufacturer tries to avoid blends, chemicals, and synthetics in its construction. There’s also the hypoallergenic wool-free cover. These design and material choices have led to the bed being certified by up to seven different bodies.
This mattress differentiates itself by featuring all-organic construction, being certified by seven different bodies, and even having the option of multiple thicknesses.
Other features: 100-night trial, excellent motion isolation, superior cooling effect
Affordability and value for money may also come into play when selecting your fiberglass-free mattress, in which case an option like the Sweetnight Twilight Hybrid Mattress is an excellent pick. It’s a hybrid bed, and you can buy either a 10” or 12” option. It’s, however, only available in limited sizes, including full, queen, and king. Additionally, it’s breathable; hence you’re unlikely to feel the heat during your sleep.
This bed is for users with a limited budget who don’t want to sacrifice comfort. That said, it can only work for those with larger bed frames.
Other features: 100-night trial, made in the USA, CertiPUR-US
With the TUFT & NEEDLE Original Adaptive Foam Mattress, you get proprietary construction that strays away from the standard memory foam and latex design. Instead, it uses T and N adaptive foam, which is supportive, bouncy, and offers excellent pressure relief. It’s entirely made in the US, and you get a trial and a decade-long warranty with the purchase as well. Consequently, you can try it out, and if it conforms to your needs, you keep it. Also, it’s both Certi PUR and Greenguard Gold certified.
This bed differentiates itself from competing mattresses without fiberglass by using proprietary foam construction.
Other features: 180-night trial, 6 layers, pressure relief, breathability, and temperature regulation
One thing the DreamCloud Queen Mattress guarantees you is that you’ll have enough time to test the bed given the 180-night trial. Excluding the foundation and cover, this is a hybrid bed with four variable layers meant to offer different attributes such as support, breathability, responsiveness, pressure relief, temperature regulation, and more. Overall, these layers combine into a 14” thickness. Notably, this is also the only bed with a plush firmness rating on the list.
This fiberglass-free mattress is for users who want a longer trial period as well as plush support.
Just because you can confirm a mattress was built without fiberglass doesn’t mean you should buy it straight away. Other things to consider include your comfort, how well it fits your bed, the support it provides, motion isolation, edge support, and more. Notably, some of this information isn’t expressly stated, and you have to infer based on the features given.
Consequently, it becomes harder for some users to pick a mattress, especially if they know next to nothing about these features. That said, you can bridge that information gap with the buying guide below.
Fiberglass in mattresses and mattress covers isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. It’s especially common in cheaper memory foam options as a flame retardant. This is because memory foam tends to ignite quickly and could easily spread flames in your home in case of a fire. Fiberglass, on the other hand, melts into a protective glass cover when exposed to heat and can thus keep the foam and other components underneath safer for longer.
As for the downsides, fiberglass isn’t healthy for the people who come into contact with it. It’s woven into the mattress cover in the form of tiny glass shards. These shards are fairly sharp, and although you won’t feel pain, they can cause irritation and itchiness on your skin.
Notably, these shards are also small enough to breathe in. Consequently, they can cause a host of breathing issues and even exacerbate asthma and allergies.
They can also be hard to eliminate from your living space if they contaminate things like your clothes, furniture upholstery, bedding, carpets, and more, not to mention the high costs associated with it. In some cases, some people opt to throw out their stuff and move out of their homes altogether.
Consequently, most people opt to avoid the risk of releasing fiberglass into their environment by avoiding fiberglass mattresses and instead of going for some of the more expensive options.
Except for ensuring there’s no fiberglass in the bed, here are a few other tips for picking the best mattresses.
With mattresses, there are a variety of types to choose from. However, foam, hybrid, and innerspring mattresses are the most common. Even the other options you may encounter are likely a variation of these three. For Instance, latex is a type of foam, and therefore latex mattresses are technically foam mattresses.
Also, you may come across cooling mattresses with gel or graphite in the foam. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they’re foam mattresses as well.
Notably, the type also determines some of the benefits you get with the bed. In the case of innerspring mattresses, they’re typically more breathable, they offer more support, there’s no need for off-gassing, and they even offer edge support.
On the other hand, foam mattresses like the TUFT & NEEDLE Original Adaptive Foam Mattress limit motion transfer, encourage proper spinal alignment, work with adjustable bed frames, and support various sleeping positions.
Hybrids like the DreamCloud Queen Mattress often offer the best of both worlds since they feature both innerspring and foam construction. Lastly, the downsides for each are unique as well.
Consequently, you can’t pick the mattress type you want on a whim. You need to consider some variables such as your sleeping position, whether you have an adjustable bed frame, whether you want edge support and anything else that could impact your satisfaction with one option or the other.
Most people already have a bed frame at home for their mattresses. Also, even if they don’t, they know what size bed they want for their bedroom. Consequently, it would be unfortunate to pick a mattress only to realize later that it doesn’t match your frame or the image you have for your bedroom.
For instance, if yours is a king-size frame, buying the DreamCloud Queen Mattress would be pointless unless you also plan on downsizing to a more petite frame as well. Remember your bed frame and mattress options could fall into Twin, Twin XL, Full, Queen, King, Split King, or Cal King size options.
The Sweetnight Twilight Hybrid Mattress mentioned above is another limited option since it only comes in three sizes.
The mattress thickness you pick should be based on preferences as well as your existing bedroom setup. If you have a bed frame with a high platform or have coupled your frame with a box spring, getting a thick mattress is a bad idea. The top of the mattress may end up too high for comfortable reach. In such a case, thinner mattresses like the Plushbeds The Natural Bliss Latex Mattress are ideal.
Alternatively, if your bed’s platform is lower, getting an option as thick as the 14” Puffy Royal Mattress should be no problem.
Firmness ratings are always given with potential mattress purchases and for a good reason. They determine how comfortable a mattress is likely to be based on your sleep patterns, body size, and weight. Plush beds, for instance, are better for smaller, lighter individuals who sleep on their side because they can provide the proper sinkage levels and spinal alignment.
Heavier individuals sleeping in the same position may need a lot more support, so firmer mattresses are ideal. The average individual feels more comfortable in the middle ground between these two; hence medium-firm beds are usually the best sellers.
There are, of course, different sleeping positions as well, which may affect your mattress firmness choices. For instance, lighter individuals who sleep on their stomachs may prefer medium-firm to firm options since they prevent them from arching and hurting their backs.
Even when considered foam, spring, or hybrid beds, most mattresses consist of multiple layers, which dictate the benefits. The DreamCloud Queen Mattress is an excellent example of a multi-layer bed. Since it’s a hybrid, it has one coil spring layer and multiple foam layers, including a cooling layer, support layer, and key stability layer.
Cooling layers tend to have temperature regulation properties such as open-cell design for breathability in addition to cooling gel or graphite. According to Science Direct Trusted Source Graphite blocks with high thermal conductivity derived from natural graphite flake - ScienceDirect In this work, natural graphite flake (NG) and mesophase pitch were used as precursor carbons to prepare the graphite blocks, which were doped with Si and Ti powders. www.sciencedirect.com , graphite offers high thermal conductivity; hence it’s used to dissipate heat in mattresses just like cooling gel.
Stability or support layers don’t have spaces and tend to be denser. The coil layer, on the other hand, would provide extra support, responsiveness, and breathability. Ultimately there will be a reason for the inclusion of each layer, and this may help you decide on the purchase.
There are also a few benefits that may come with your selection of cover material. Some are hypoallergenic, meaning they will keep allergens out, which can help you sleep better. It also doesn’t make sense to avoid a material that exacerbates asthma only to go for one that exacerbates allergies.
It could also have a rough surface to keep it from moving on a platform frame. A few other benefits associated with mattress covers include being washable, having organic construction, being stain resistant, and more.
If you like to have all your bases covered, a warranty is another thing to look for in your mattress purchase. Luckily most mattresses come with warranties of at least ten years. Considering the typical mattress lifespan is about ten years having a warranty that lasts as long is a good idea. Some like the Nolah Natural 11″ go overboard and even offer lifetime warranties.
Nevertheless, there are some exceptions as well that come with zero warranty, and it may be better to avoid them altogether, especially if they don’t have positive reviews for accepting returns or taking responsibility for defective products.
Ideally, the price should be at the top of your considerations. After all, it makes no sense for you to find a mattress that ticks all your boxes, but you can’t afford it. If you find one that isn’t in your budget range, it’s best to eliminate it from your options early.
All mattresses sold in the US conform to this law, and sometimes this is made possible by the inclusion of fiberglass in the mattress. As mentioned above, the fiberglass can melt and provide a protective cover over the foam, which is highly flammable.
If necessary, you may have to spot clean the bed but try not to agitate the cover too much; otherwise, it may release some fiberglass shards.
The Amerisleep AS3, Puffy Royal Mattress, and Naturepedic Chorus Organic Mattress make up the top three fiberglass-free mattresses on our list. The AS3’s zonal support system is ideal for providing support for the average-weight side and back sleeper. Also, temperature regulation is one of its strong suits.
The Puffy Royal Mattress offers both better breathability and a better warranty than most alternatives. As for the Naturepedic pick, the minimal processing of the materials makes it better for users who prefer organic beds. It also provides exceptional support thanks to the design of its spring layers.
If you’re looking to buy the best mattress without fiberglass, start by considering these three. That said, if they don’t meet your requirements, there are a few more alternatives listed as well.
