Vita Talalay latex is specially designed to provide healthy sleep. Apart from the psychological health benefits of a good night’s sleep provided by our comfort material, we naturally also provide physical health benefits.
We have transformed Mother Nature’s gift into the best comfort material for your posture: back, shoulders, neck and hips. But we also made sure in numerous ways that sleeping on Vita Talalay latex is healthy and safe.
Our natural material is 100% free from any harmful substances. It also does not off-gas any hazardous particles and consists solely out of clean, pure and natural materials. This also includes our choice for flame retardants – ours is fully natural.
We have even made sure to wash every single block of our product before it leaves our grounds for added safety, and also do so with the environment in mind.
To top it off, we have been certified by numerous highly credible independent institutions to prove our claims. Finally, our product is also antibacterial and anti fungal by nature. Rest assured, with our healthy product your whole family can sleep safe and wake up refreshed.
Naturalness
Dunlop
Often Dunlop suppliers and retailers claim that Talalay cannot be natural. Actually, the process (Dunlop or Talalay process) is not responsible for the naturalness. It depends fully on the recipe.
Both Dunlop and Talalay can be made with natural latex (non-synthetic latex) and can be equally in natural content. If Dunlop or Talalay has no Eco Institute certificate however, it could be made with synthetics or contain fillers!
So a product that is called natural may contain only between 70-85% natural latex and 15-30% fillers. Fillers are for example silicates, calcium carbonate, clay, chalk or feldspar. Fillers are added in order to increase the firmness of the finished product and to reduce the cost of production.
Next to making a foam inconsistent in firmness and decreasing firmness over time, the material also starts crumbling earlier and these particles get airborne.
Having no guarantee on the safety of the recipe of these companies, either Dunlop or Talalay companies, it is better to check for the Eco Institute certificate that guarantees no fillers are used. No fillers makes less chance of having unknown particles getting airborne.
Also not mentioned by Dunlop producers is the fact that to get from the milky latex to a solid foam product one needs to chemically “foam” the material. So with Dunlop the foaming is done by adding a chemical to make foam.
Vita Talalay latex
Vita Talalay latex is fully natural without any artificial additives, fillers, or any other chemicals. As opposed to memory foam, our product is not based on chemical oil-derivatives, but comes directly from the rubber tree and is pure natural.
Furthermore, instead of, for example, using fillers to add firmness to our product, we simply add more natural latex into the mold. Once the mold creates a vacuum, more natural latex equals to more firmness.
We see no need to add any harmful substances to our product – especially not at the cost of your health. Mother Nature has given us everything we need. To guarantee this, simply have a look at our Eco Institute certificate here.
Also, opposite to the chemical foaming used with Dunlop, the foaming with Talalay is done mechanically. Air bubbles are used to froth the milky sap.
By using mechanical foaming (vacuuming), the foam is then created. As always, this step in the Vita Talalay latex production process is a very clean one with no harmful substances whatsoever.
Fire retardant / flame retardant
In some countries, like the United Kingdom (UK), it is mandatory that the furniture is completely fire-retardant. It is obligatory to add a chemical flame retardant to materials used.
This also includes comfort foam. Sometimes, companies spray a chemical material on the outside of the foam (which is not even sufficient), or put chemicals directly into the compound. But chemical flame retardants may never fully bind with the material.
This means that over time the harmful substance will disperse into the air. In fact, long exposure to flame retardants has been proven to potentially cause lifelong health issues. This is also acknowledged by the USA Department of Health and Human Services.
With Vita Talalay latex we have been able to make a natural flame retardant after several years of research. We do so by adding graphite into the formula as it is naturally flame retardant.
We can add it to the product to make it first of all meet the most stringent fire retardant regulations, and secondly meet the most stringent safety and toxicity requirements (no flame retardants that contain bromine, chlorine, phosphorus, nitrogen, metals, or boronlike PBDE’s).
Washed for extra hygiene
We make sure to wash every single block of latex we produce with clear well water one single time. This seems like a no brainer, but actually not all countries have clean water or avoid washing in order to save costs. The washing happens directly after it comes out of the mold and right before the post-vulcanization process.
Approximately 150 liter (40 gallons) of water is used to wash a queen size mattress (152x202x15cm, 60”x80”x6”). This way, all exempt process materials, soaps and proteins are fully washed out of every single Vita Talalay latex product.
Since we are also an environmentally friendly company, every single drop of water we use is filtered. This is also proven by our Cradle-to-Cradle® GOLD certification. As a matter of fact, Water Stewardship is one of their 5 required Quality Categories!
Suitable even for babies
Vita Talalay latex is proven to be safe for humans. To ensure that, we have made sure that our natural comfort material is safe for adults, as well as babies. This is because an adult human being is more resistant to external threats than an infant.
In addition, a baby will most likely spend more time in a sleeping environment than an adult would. We simply wanted to make absolutely sure that we keep up to our wish: wishing you a healthy sleep.
OEKO-TEX 100 Productclass 1
All of our products have been tested by and certified with the OEKO-TEX 100 Productclass 1 certification. This means that Vita Talalay latex does not contain any harmful substances which may endanger you or your family. Important to know for those with sensitive skin: our comfort material has a skin friendly pH.
It also means that Vita Talalay latex does not contain any ozone depleters, flame retardants, phthalates, formaldehyde, nor mercury, lead or any other heavy metals. Our comfort material has also been tested by OEKO-TEX under artificial perspiration conditions to additionally prove this.
Furthermore, we have been tested for pesticides and chlorinated phenols, chloro-organic carriers and biologically active finishes. Also here we are happy to say that we contain none of the compounds mentioned earlier.
When we say “not any”, we literally mean “Zero”! In fact, OEKO-TEX increases their requirements for a successful certification the more a product is designed to come into skin contact with a consumer. Have a look at our certificate for yourself!
Zero toxicity score
The first important factor was to see whether a mattress, topper or pillow is dangerous when it comes into skin contact with a human being. The other is to see whether or not a bedding product has any harmful emissions.
It is impossible for a comfort material to have no emissions at all. Everything off-gasses – zero VOCs just can’t be true. The important keyword here, though, is “harmful”. Or in other words: to see whether or not your bedding product gives out any harmful gasses or particles during the product’s lifecycle. As always, we wanted to make sure that this does not happen. Once again, Vita Talalay latex wants to be the healthy choice.
We are proud to present our second “Zero” here for your health and wellbeing. Our Vita Talalay latex products have proven to have a toxicity score of Zero. Our natural comfort material has been tested according to the international ISO 16000 standard by the leading German products and emissions testing and quality assurance provider: the Eco Institute.
As a result, we have been certified with the Eco Institute certification. In addition, the Eco Institute proves once more that Vita Talalay latex does not off-gas any harmful Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Semi-VOCs or Very-VOCs.
Most importantly, this proves that our natural material does not contain any CMR-VOCs. CMR-VOCs are volatile organic compounds that are very harmful to health. This includes compounds which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or reproduction-toxic.
Furthermore, this certificate proves that our comfort material is purely made of natural latex and does not contain any fillers, silicates, odorizers, etc.
Other Certifications
In order to produce the healthiest natural comfort material, we increasingly try to control the raw materials. We have done so by making sure that our main ingredient, natural latex, comes from responsible, transparent, and safe sources.
This goes all the way from the planting of the rubber tree seed, to the growing of the hevea brasiliensis, all the way to the transporting of the liquid white gold to our doorstep.
Based on the circular philosophy, Cradle-to-Cradle helped us to make a proprietary and safe recipe. Not just the latex as the main raw material, but the whole recipe that makes our comfort material.
We monitor the use of proper pesticides and fertilizers on our plantations. To prove this, we have been certified with the FSC® and Rainforest Alliance certifications.
The certificates ensure that forest owners and managers implement the best environmental, social and economic practices for their plantations. This includes everything from fertilizers, pesticides, soil, water usage, wildlife, deforestation, and the list goes on.
We have always lived up to our claims, and have proven so with numerous certifications. If you would like to know more about our many certifications, please click here!
Antibacterial & anti fungal properties of latex
Vita Talalay latex is inherently antibacterial and anti fungal. This means that our comfort material seriously inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungus. The unique properties are credit to two aspects. Firstly, natural latex in general is already hygienic by nature.
This is because the white rubber tree sap is the natural defense mechanism of the rubber trees. It uses the latex to heal wounds, making it anti fungal, antibacterial and antimicrobial. Furthermore, the open, cellular structure formed by our unique Talalay latex production process plays the second important role.
One of the many benefits of the unique cell structure is that our material is extremely breathable. This makes it hypoallergenic and gives no ground for dust-mites as it does not allow a humid micro-climate to inhibit fungus in our bedding products.