Every mattress we make is cut to your measurements, so the size is the easy part. What is left to decide is the feel — and three things settle that: how you sleep, your build, and whether you sleep hot. Find yourself below, and if you would rather talk it through, the number is at the bottom.
The most common way to sleep
Your shoulder and hip take the weight, so the surface has to give beneath them while your back stays straight. Too firm and you wake with a numb arm and a sore hip.
Best firmness: Medium
Memory foam holds warmth. If you sleep hot as well, take the Coolplus™ in medium-firm and you keep the cushioning without it.
The easiest position to support
Even support the whole way along, so your lower back keeps its natural curve. It should not leave a hollow underneath you, and it should not let your hips drop too deep.
Best firmness: Medium-firm or Firm
The Comfisan™ is where most back sleepers settle. If you are replacing the mattress in a good bed frame and want it to feel like a proper bedroom mattress, the Imperial Elite™ 2000 is the one.
Needs a firmer bed than most
A firmer surface, so your hips and stomach do not sink and arch your back. Soft is the wrong choice here, and it is usually the reason front sleepers wake with a sore lower back.
Best firmness: Firm or Hard
Avoid: soft memory foam — you sink too far into it.
If you sleep on your front and the mattress you have is soft, that is very likely what is causing the ache.
You wake up too warm
Something that carries the heat away instead of holding it under you. It matters most in a room that does not cool down overnight — a loft or an attic bedroom, or anywhere the window has to stay shut.
Best firmness: any — choose on how you sleep
Avoid: ordinary memory foam (Bodyshape™) — it holds your body heat.
Air moves through the Coolplus™ gel layer around thirty times more freely than through ordinary memory foam, so the heat you give off goes somewhere. The Imperial Elite™ sleeps cool too, because air moves through the springs.
Support and cushioning together
Both at once. Too soft and your back is not held. Too firm and the pressure builds where you press into it. You want your back supported while the places that ache are cushioned.
Best firmness: Medium-firm or Firm
It depends where the pain is. A lower back usually wants firmer support, so the Comfisan™. Hips and shoulders want more cushioning — a Bodyshape™ Topper over a firmer mattress gives you both, and we cut toppers to the same measurements.
More support, and it has to last
Denser foam or pocket springs underneath, so you do not sink too far and so the mattress keeps its shape. Going deeper helps as much as going firmer.
Best firmness: Firm or Hard
Two thousand springs share the load rather than one slab of foam carrying all of it, so the Imperial Elite™ 2000 lasts best. If the bed frame limits how deep you can go, tell us the clearance and we will work to it.
Firm is not always the answer
A softer surface that gives enough to cushion you. If you are light, a firm mattress may never compress under you, so you get the hardness without the support you were after.
Best firmness: Medium
It is easy to assume firm means supportive. If you are light you often do not sink far enough for firm to do anything, and a medium will hold you just as well.
Different needs, one bed
A mattress that does not carry movement across it, so when one of you gets up the other stays asleep. If one of you likes soft and the other firm, we can make two and zip them together — ask us.
Best firmness: Medium or Firm — the usual middle ground
Every spring in the Imperial Elite™ 2000 moves on its own, so a turn stays on the side of the bed it started on.
Where we have marked something to avoid, that is us being straight with you rather than steering you elsewhere.
| You | Essential™ | Comfisan™ | Bodyshape™ | Novolatex™ | Coolplus™ | Imperial Elite™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Side sleeper | OK | OK | Best | Good | Good | Good |
| Back sleeper | OK | Best | OK | Good | Good | Best |
| Front sleeper | Good | Best | Avoid | Good | OK | Good |
| Sleeps hot | OK | OK | Avoid | OK | Best | Good |
| Bad back | OK | Best | OK | Good | Good | Best |
| 16 stone and over | Good | Best | OK | Good | OK | Best |
| Under 10 stone | OK | OK | Best | Good | Good | Good |
| Two of you | OK | OK | Good | OK | Good | Best |
Most people ring before they order, and we would rather you did — particularly with a bed that is not a standard size, where the measurements matter as much as the mattress. Tell us what you are sleeping on now and what aches in the morning.
Ring 0121 663 6114 — Mon–Fri 10–5, Sat 10–2. We will talk you through the measurements before you order.
See the mattress range
