What’s Inside Your Mattress | GSM Explained
To make sure you’re equipped with all the right knowledge when shopping for your new mattress, take a look at our guide covering what you need to know about GSM and natural fibres.
What’s Inside Your Mattress?
Grams per Square Meter (GSM) is something mattress manufacturers and retailers do not want you to know when buying a new mattress. But, once you know and understand why GSM is important, you’ve got the upper hand in finding out precisely what’s inside your mattress and whether or not the mattress is worth the money you are paying. We reveal why the retailers and manufacturers hide this detail and how you can find out what’s inside your mattress—helping you not waste money.
Unfortunately, most mattress manufacturers and retailers withhold essential information regarding the design and construction of mattresses. Hopefully, this guide will remind you always to ask, ‘What’s the GSM of the natural fillings in this mattress?’.
You may have never seen the reference GSM before when shopping for a mattress, which proves how tight-lipped the mattress industry is. So let’s dig a little deeper to show why you need to know the GSM.
GRAMS PER SQAURE METER
Grams per square metre (GSM) refers to the weight of a particular natural fibre used inside the mattress, measurement used by mattress manufacturers when purchasing natural fibres, and a basis to verify the quality of a mattress, for example, the more GSM of high-quality natural fibres in a mattress indicates a higher quality item.
GSM is the weight of a square metre of fibre, and it does not matter what type (White Fibre, Wool, Horsehair, Alpaca, Mohair) thick, thin, springy the fibre is, the exact weight of a metre of the fibre remains the same. So the simple fact is if you don’t know the GSM, you have no way of determining if the mattress you want to purchase is worth the money, but by knowing the GSM, when comparing mattresses, you will be able to tell which is better than the other without even testing them.
Mattress retailers hide the GSM because they don’t want you to make comparisons between mattress brands and models. Without this information, you will struggle to compare and choose a new mattress correctly. This way, saleswomen and men can promote finance, discounts and other sales methods to you until you decide on whichever mattress you think is the best, emphasising the word ‘think. Of course, it would be better to know which mattress gave you the most value for your money in an ideal world.
Unless you know which mattress has the 1250GSM cotton, you will never know which mattress is the higher quality mattress but you will pay the same price.
Yes, it is! The mattress fillings are the most costly part of your mattress, and so you must know that what’s inside the mattress is worth the money. This is why GSM is rarely ever stated by retailers, online stores and manufacturers, as it’s the one thing they do not want you to ask or know about, so be cautious of mattress stores that say to you, they don’t know.
When buying a new mattress, make sure that you choose the one with the greatest amount of high-quality natural fillings. Higher GSM of fillings will ensure settlement, indents and body impressions do not alter the mattress over time and provide significantly more comfort and support.
If a retailer’s prices are higher with less GSM or natural fibre content, you should ask them why? And don’t let them give the speel of GSM is not important or their costs are higher because of the springs they use or the handcrafting is expensive as all high-end luxury mattress brands have these same costs for springs, labour and mattress ticking. It’s the fillings that will make the mattress more expensive so for example:
GSM
Natural fibre content
Outer cover
Rows of side-stitching (handcrafting)
Springs
GSM
Natural fibre content
Outer cover
Rows of side-stitching (handcrafting)
Springs
…Because the retailer selling Mattress 1 has a much higher markup. By seeing the above examples, it is clear that mattress 2 is superior to mattress 1 as it has more gsm of fillings, more rows of stitching (meaning more handcrafting), the same outer cover and lastly, even the springs cost more. But, without knowing the GSM, you would not be able to make an educated decision on which mattress is better.
Alpaca
Horsetail
Horsehair
Cotton
Silk
Mohair
Cashmere
Wool
Bamboo
Coir
Organic Flax
Hemp
Once you understand GSM and why it’s so important, you will know what to look for when reading through mattress descriptions. We hope that all mattress retailers will eventually list their products the same way food corporations do, with a detailed summary showing components and weight.
There really should be no reason for the necessary detail on what’s inside your mattress before you hand over thousands of pounds isn’t already given to you so you can make a fair comparison.
At Winstons Beds, we are entirely transparent and list all of our mattress fillings GSM so you can make an educated decision on which mattress you want and whether you believe it’s worth the money you are paying.
Published: 11th November 2020 (Updated: 13th August 2021) |