You know those advertisements that the “big guys” use? The ads that say “By the time your mattress is 7 years old it weighs 4 times as much as it did when you bought it!” Let’s clarify a few points. First, it is true that there is more dust in the air than you think there is. It is also true that humans and animals create dander. Maybe if you slept on your bed without sheets or a mattress pad it could gain some amount of weight from body oils, dust, and dander but we don’t suggest doing that! The reality is that everyone should be using a washable mattress pad under their sheets to protect their mattress investment since it’s kind of hard to throw your mattress in the washing machine. If you use an organic mattress pad you will eliminate almost all of the sweat, body oil, dust and dander from reaching the surface of your mattress.

At The Natural Sleep Store there is a great selection of organic mattress pads to suit your needs. Maybe you want a quilted mattress pad for a high level of protection for your mattress. Maybe you want a mattress pad that will protect your mattress sufficiently, but won’t change the feel of your mattress. Or maybe you want a wool moisture pad to specifically protect against moisture. We have three main categories for mattress pads; Quilted Pads with Woven Fabric, Non Quilted Pads with Knit Fabric, and Wool Moisture Pads. Quilted pads are made from two layers of woven cotton fabric (like the material percale sheets are made from) with either cotton or wool quilted in between.  Quilted pads are very breathable and are thicker than non quilted pads and thus create a good barrier between you and your mattress.  This type of mattress pad offers great protection against dust, dander, and oils getting to your mattress because it would have to travel through all three layers to touch your mattress.  It offers good protection for normal amounts of perspiration, but does not protect against excess moisture.  

Non quilted stretch knit pads are simply made out of knit cotton fabric.  Knit pads offer protection for your mattress as most of the dust, dander and oils get caught in the fabric before reaching your mattress. The benefit of a knit mattress pad is  that it doesn’t change the feel of your mattress. Specifically, if you have a mattress with a knit cotton cover (knit fabric being a little stretchy), a mattress pad also made from knit fabric moves just like the fabric that covers your mattress.  Alternatively, if you were to put a quilted pad (made with non-stretchy woven fabric) over a mattress with knit fabric, it could change the feel of your mattress slightly, as the woven fabric does not move the same way as a knit fabric does.

Wool moisture pads are made from felted wool that is woven together so tightly, that it repels moisture.   Wool moisture pads are going to be the most protective organic mattress pad, as not much can get through that could soil your mattress.  For large amounts of moisture, it is best to also layer a cotton mattress pad over the wool moisture pad.  The disadvantages of the wool moisture pad is that some people can feel the coarse texture of the wool through their sheets, which is another reason to layer a cotton pad on top of your wool moisture pad.  It is also less breathable than a cotton mattress pad (air doesn’t travel through it as well as air travels through cotton).

Part of picking a mattress pad is determining what the surface of your mattress is made of. For some mattresses made with a stretchy knit outer fabric (Bella Sera, Green Sleep, Sleeptek, Freefrom), if you do not want the mattress pad to change the feel of the mattress, you would want to pick a mattress pad with a similar fabric.  For example if you have a Bella Sera Nove 3 mattress and you want to feel like the mattress pad is “not there”  the Suite Sleep Organic Cotton Mattress pad or the Sleeptek Knit Cotton Mattress Pad are great choices since both the organic cotton on

the outside of the Bella Sera Mattress and the cotton of the Suite Sleep or Sleeptek pads are stretchy knit fabrics. Of course you can use a quilted pad, like the Coyuchi Organic Cotton Mattress Pad or the Suite Sleep Washable Wool Mattress Pad, however, your mattress may feel just a bit different when using them.

If you have a mattress with a woven fabric, like Savvy Rest or Royal Pedic, any of the organic mattress pads we offer will work fine and should not change the feel of the mattress.

Maybe you are looking for an all organic solution to protect a child’s mattress while they are potty training. For this we generally recommend one of our organic wool moisture pads, like the Sleeptek Organic Wool Moisture Pad with a quilted cotton pad layered on top (like the Coyuchi Mattress Pad), this will give you a natural breathable solution (free from synthetic materials) that is very good at preventing moisture from reaching the surface of your mattress.

Lets circle back to that scary advertisement. All of that dust and dander that supposedly infiltrates your mattress… good news, it really doesn’t! It’s caught by your mattress pad and guess how you get rid of it? You wash it. Pretty simple right? Give us a call at 1-866-663-0859 or shoot us an e-mail and we can help you pick the perfect mattress pad for your organic mattress.