If you have your mind set on a natural or organic mattress then no doubt the Birch Natural Organic Mattress has already come to your attention. This mattress sports so many natural and sustainable certifications that it should tick every organic box that you need it to
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If you have your mind set on a natural or organic mattress then no doubt the Birch Natural Organic Mattress has already come to your attention. This mattress sports so many natural and sustainable certifications that it should tick every organic box that you need it to. Some mattresses have CertPUR-US… The Birch has everything.
Without further ado let’s delve into the Birch Natural Organic Mattress and find out if it is really as pure as they say it is…
Branding
Birch focuses on the all-natural, all-organic aspects of their mattress for most of their marketing. Their web page is sleek, their mattresses look overtly comfortable and their neutral, trusting color scheme makes you feel instantly relaxed. They also manage to convey exactly just how high quality each mattress is by giving as much detail as possible about the materials they use, the sustainability of those materials and the processes by which they are treated.
Non-toxic is a fey feature of their branding, and makes this mattress a valid choice for anyone concerned about off-gassing. Any smell this mattress gives off will be entirely safe. The bedding contains no polyurethane foam or artificial materials. They also pay tribute to reviews and quote some magazines and authority figures on their brand.
Certifications for the Birch Natural Organic mattress include Wool Integrity NZ, OEKO-TEX, Organic Cotton, and rain-forest alliance certification. Better still; they have set aside a part of their website so you can easily find this information. We have nothing but positive encouragement for brands doing their piece to preserve the planet.
We gave the Birch Natural Organic Mattress a 10 out of 10 for Branding.
The Birch Natural Organic mattress has four layers all designed to cater to your comfort. Most importantly for comfort and feel; this is a medium firm mattress that sits somewhere around 6.5/7 out of ten on the firmness scale. This means there is enough give in the mattress to make it comfortable but also enough spring back to give you a little bounce.
The Birch Organic is a hybrid mattress, which means there are hundreds of individually wrapped coils encased in their Talalay memory foam rubber. Talalay foam is taken from a sustainable tree source and is where the OKEO-TEX certification comes in. This foam is topped with layers of natural latex and deep, comfortable New Zealand Birch Wool.
On top of it all is a natural, organic cotton quilted cover that keeps your body separate from all that rubber and wool. The top layer is quilted, allowing air flow under you while you sleep but still letting the mattress conform to your shape as you sink deeper into that luxurious wool. Reviewers compare the comfort and feel of this mattress to sleeping on a cloud but with bounce.
The reviews for the Birch Natural Organic mattress are overwhelmingly positive – with some even contradicting our findings! Verified buyer Ann P. says:
“I knew I wanted an organic mattress because I get worried about the smell from a lot of the foam beds out there. We stumbled on Birch and wanted to give it a try. So far it’s been really good – zero smell. Feel is medium / medium firm.”
While Oliver G points towards the sustainability and values that buying this mattress buys you into:
“My girlfriend and I both really like the mattress so far. And I must admit I like the social cause too.”
Lastly,Matt P. says it is just what he and his partner needed:
“My girlfriend and I both really like the mattress so far. And I must admit I like the social cause too.”
Delivery of the Birch Natural Organic mattress is usually free and should take between 4 and 8 working days from the day that you ordered. The Birch is a bed-in-a-box, which means that it will arrive vacuum sealed in plastic and rolled up inside a box. When your box arrives we recommend that you take it into the room you want to keep it in from then on, because the mattress will be more difficult to manoevre once it has expanded.
Once you have the mattress in the room that you want it in, take a sharp instrument and use it to cut away the box. The mattress will unroll at this point and you can position it correctly before you then cut away the plastic wrapping. Be very careful at this stage not to damage the fabric of the bed. Once the fabric is free of the plastic your new mattress will begin to expand.
You should be able to sleep on your Birch Natural Organic mattress as soon as it arrives – but it can take up to 36 hours to fully inflate and give you the proper comfort experience…so don’t be too quick to judge! Your mattress may also take a few days to settle so please do give it at least a fortnight before you go sending it back.
We gave the Birch Natural Organic Mattress a 10 out of 10 for delivery and setup.
Off-Gassing
Off-gassing is a bit of a misleading term really. The thing is, any new product you bring into your home is going to smell like the last place it was kept. Whether this be a shop floor or a storage facility – every product has a smell. The way to think of it is similar to the smell in a new car or the smell of a new pair of shoes. If off-gassing actually released toxic chemicals into the air then the product wouldn’t pass health and safety regulations.
That being said it has been proven that certain chemicals used to make bedding fire-proof can be carcinogenic. This is why more and more people are turning to natural and organic mattresses. You should be wary, however, that natural and organic mattresses (such as the Birch) tend to have more of a smell than those that have been chemically treated. This is because they use only natural or organic fibers, which tend to smell – well – natural.
With all of this in mind we should probably put your mind at ease. We noticed virtually no smell with the Birch Natural Organic mattress. If you do notice a smell it should be very faint and should be barely noticeable after you have added a mattress protector (which we always recommend) and clean sheets. Any noticeable smell will be completely gone within 48 hours.
We gave the Birch Natural Organic mattress a 9 out of 10 for off-gassing.
The birch mattress is made up of five layers, each of which has had the upmost in attention to detail placed in it. The top layer is Birch’s organic cotton cover. This is quilted for your comfort and stands about an inch thick. It is soft to the touch, promotes airflow between you and the mattress while you sleep and stops you sticking to the surface of the bed… and all while being totally natural.
Beneath the cover is a .5 inch thick layer of Birch wool. This is the sustainably sourced New Zealand wool they are very proud of. This wool layer acts as a comfort layer and puts some distance between you and the 2 inch thick sustainably sourced and all-natural Talalay latex layer. Beneath the layer of latex foam there is an eight inch layer which makes up most of the mattress.
This eight inch layer is where you will find the steel coils. Each one is wrapped in foam and the outer springs are tougher than the inner ones. These provide pressure point relief and help to give the bed a little bounce. This layer also has a woven reinforced cotton edging which adds further to the edging. The final layer on the bottom is densely packed wool. It is only a half inch thick but it gives the mattress the majority of its structural support.
In terms of construction and materials Birch have thought out every single detail with this mattress. We gave them a 10 out of ten for their thoughtfulness and consideration for the environment.
The hybrid mattress was specifically designed to give you the best of both worlds and motion reduction is one of the categories that they traditionally perform well in. The hybrid uses the conforming sinkage of memory foam to encourage you to sink into the bed. Then they add in springs in lower layers, to give you a little spring back and to stop you from sinking too low.
The Birch has very good motion reduction – not excellent – but very good. The reason it isn’t scoring top marks is that there is a little movement on the other edge of the bed. This is because of the firmness of the mattress, not because of the make up of it. Another thing that stops sinkage is the reasonably thick layer of New Zealand wool. It is super comfortable and it wicks away sweat but it is also a little bouncy. Both of these things combined make for a lot of bounce that is only curbed by a thin layer of Talalay foam.
Anyone who has ever sat on the edge of a memory foam bed will be able to tell you that they have no edge support. It is for this reason that the hybrid mattress – that’s memory foam beds which contain springs – was first brought into the equation. Nowadays more and more strides are being made to advance the edge support in memory foam beds; whereas hybrid mattress makers are able to focus on other features. In the case of the Birch Natural Organic mattress they have focused on Eco-friendly and sustainable products… which is ideal in the modern world.
The reason they don’t really need to worry about the edge support in this bed is that there is a reinforced edge all around those pocketed steel springs in the bottom layers. These springs are encased in foam. The outer edge springs are thicker than the inner ones to make doubly sure that the edge holds your weight when you stand up or lay down. It’s not that they haven’t thought about edge support, it’s that they made it so good that they don’t really need to revise it.
Although there are four layers which helps to keep some kind of air movement going while you sleep; the Birch Natural Organic Mattress focuses much more on the naturalness and sustainability of their product. The second they start adding in cooling technology is the second that they start having to introduce harsh chemicals. So in this respect, at least, they are quite right to stick to their design. With that said, latex is one of the coolest foams you can buy.
| Size | Price |
|---|---|
| Twin | $1049 |
| Twin XL | $1099 |
| Full | $11299 |
| Queen | $1499 |
| King | $1799 |
| Cal King | $1799 |
The Birch has a bit of an unusual trial and warranty situation – if only because their sleep trial is pretty bog standard yet their warranty is fantastic… While industry standard for mattresses tends to fall around the 110 night mark; the Birch Natural Organic Mattress actually only features a sleep trial of 100 nights. While this does mean that you can try it out over a couple of seasons to see how it sleeps, it also means that they are being outmaneuvered by several other mattress manufacturers.
On the other side of the coin, the Birch Natural Organic mattress comes with a 25 year guarantee, whereas the industry standard in this case is only ten years. So where they might not do well in one area, they do exceptionally well in the other. Is it enough to balance out the good and the bad? We think so… and so do their thousands of happy customers!
Overall Summary
So how does the Birch Natural Organic mattress live up to its hype? Fairly well, actually. In terms of good points this mattress has plenty: it is Eco-friendly, made with all natural or all organic fibers, has great edge support and is one of the softest things you will ever feel on your skin. Areas where the Birch doesn’t perform as well are motion reduction, temperature control and a little in the off-gassing section. Remember – all smells from this mattress are guaranteed safe so that scent really is just a smell.
We recommend this mattress to anyone who wants a fully natural or organic mattress for a reasonable price tag, as opposed to having to take out a second mortgage to get one. They do have a range of financing options to make things easier for you. We also recommend this mattress to anyone worried about the sustainability of their products and where the materials it is made from are sourced. Ethically, this is one of the best mattresses we have reviewed yet.
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