I recently noticed products that claim to help keep you cool in bed.
“Clark Rubber” stores advertise “Long finger gel infused overlays” and “Comfort premium copper overlay” at $449. I wonder if they actually help pull heat away from the body, as it claims.
A test would be appreciated.
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The product as advertised has very little detail. What form is the copper, is it metal or a copper compound? How much copper? How much heat does it move? If it is really efficient won’t you get cold in winter? It is said to protect against viruses and microbes but no test results are given.
No evidence of any of the claims is provided. The blurb reads like overheated waffle of a keen junior copy writer. It’s ‘natural’ you know. And environmentally friendly. Has anybody checked out the copper mines around the world that have caused incalculable environmental damage?
The images show foam, maybe it has specks in it, not sure. Metallic copper is an excellent conductor of heat, copper compounds not so much. Foam rubber is an excellent insulator, it has a thermal conductivity of the order of one ten thousandth of copper metal.
How well would foam with embedded specks of copper conduct heat compared to just plain foam? Not knowing how much copper or if it is metallic I don’t know for sure but my bet is the answer is you would need good equipment to tell the difference.
I nominate this product for a Gold Shonky.
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On both products it looks like there are flecks of gel, and or copper rather than channels. i would think that you would need channels to direct heat away from the body & dissipate it, rather than just storing it in the small flecks.
I agree with @syncretic’s assessment of the copy. To me it sounds like someone has used a random jargon generator to throw in as many marketting claims in as possible.
A test would only be warranted if it looked as if it might work. As it is, I suggest that it is just hyperbole.
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If the design were to pull heat away from the body, where does it go to? As a topper, the mattress that it is placed on is too warm to sleep on. Would the topper simply heat up and hold heat trapped between the sleeper and the mattress? It then remains trapped under the covers.
It does sound very shonky.
P.S.
I could suggest from experience that if it was an old bladder style water bed it would have the capacity to draw heat away from the body. 500litres or so.
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I can’t comment on this particular version but have purchased a gel mattress topper in the search for relief from horrendous night sweats during menopause.
I thought this was the answer - and the initial contact IS blissful - but after time the heat has no where to dissipate and you are left lying on a hot gel mattress topper. If there is someone else sharing the bed, you are also left with nowhere to go without stripping the bed. And of course, now the mattress has been warmed as well.
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For some reason this reminds me of government claims about carbon capture, yet everything has to be somewhere 
On topic, shopping for a new mattress we had a look at the Makin Mattress. Their topper has little pocket springs and it did present a different feel and seemed cooler than most.
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It doesn’t make sense that gel toppers would be cooler.
Gel is a good insulator which means that part of the body against the gel topper will get hotter over time as one’s body heat won’t be conducted or radiated way.
They also can store a significant amount of embodied energy/heat, so once it gets warm from the body lying on it, it will stay warm for a long time.
It may be okay in cool environments where the night gets cooler towards the morning and the additional stored heat in the gel topper will make the bed slightly warmer in the morning…but to be cooler in a hot bedroom, doesn’t make sense.
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I guess they make them so they work on thermal mass, ie the gell starts out cooler and takes time to heat up, so as a person falls asleep it is cooler, once they are asleep if the mattress is body temp it probably wouldn’t be noticed. As a person moves around some of the stored heat/energy would be dissipated and so might feel cooler for a bit longer.
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We purchased a cooling gel foam mattress topper about a year ago. We decided to get an 8cms thick one, big mistake, I am quite short (155cms) and it raised the height of the bed so much I had to use a small step-stool in order to get into bed.
The topper was ok for about a year and in winter we didn’t miss not being able to use the electric blanket. Summer it seemed to hold the heat, however we persevered.
Over about a year we noticed this “lump” getting bigger and bigger in the middle of the bed. We both have back problems and our back problems were beginning to get worse and worse, the “mound” down the middle was becoming quite uncomfortable, make that unbearable!
The upshot is that we removed the cooling gel foam mattress topper and put it underneath our mattress in the hopes of flattening it.
Not that we would use it again but in order to make it more manageable to roll up and dispose of.
Yes we did rotate it on a very regular basis.
I can’t remember the name of the topper, but we purchased it online.
NO I would not recommend purchasing one. In my opinion they are just a con, great when relatively new but then downhill as the weeks and months go on.
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Hi @his4heather, welcome to the community and your first hand experience with the gel topper. I hope you returned it for a refund, as a product like this should last a long time and live up to the promotional material. On both grounds, you have a valid case to return the topper and ask for a refund under the Australian Consumer Law.
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No we haven’t returned the topper.
We disposed of the box it was packed in and believe me once we unpacked it it sprang into being taking on a life of its own and I doubt that we would be able to re-roll and pack it for transportation.
We have put this purchase down to us being unlucky.
We will dispose of it by cutting it into manageable pieces with the electric knife and putting it where it belongs…in the garbage!
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You don’t need the original box to return it for a refund…just proof of purchase such as receipt, online order confirmation, bank statement etc.
It is worth contacting the retailer you purchased it from in order to seek a refund.
If it is too big for you to transport, the retailer is responsible for its collection.
You haven’t been unlucky, you have bought a product with misleading claims or isn’t fit for purpose.
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You don’t need the box it was sold in. If it is too bulky then the seller may be responsible for picking it up under Australian Consumer Law (ACL) requirements. Your right to remedy covers these areas (copied from the ACCC site on your rights).
" Returning the product
You are entitled to return a product if you believe that there is a problem. You are generally responsible for returning the product if it can be posted or easily returned. You are entitled to recover reasonable postage or transportation costs from the business if the product is confirmed to have a problem, so keep your receipts.
When a product is too large, too heavy or too difficult to remove, the business is responsible for paying the shipping costs or collecting the product within a reasonable time of being notified of the problem. Examples include:
- a wide screen TV
- a bed
- an extension ladder stuck in the extended position
- a product that has been subsequently installed, like a stove or a dishwasher.
You do not have to return products in the original packaging in order to get a refund.
If the product is found not to have a problem, you may be required to pay the transport or inspection costs. An estimate of these costs should be provided to you before the product is collected, and the costs must not be inflated in an attempt to deter you from pursuing your claims."
If it gets to be too challenging for you to get your remedy you can always choose not to go further, but making the attempt at least may be all you need to do. I would encourage you to at least try. I think there are a few businesses out there who work on the principle that most unsatisfied customers won’t attempt to get their entitlement or they bluff the customer into believing they don’t have the right to a remedy.
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Thank you for providing this information, which incidently is an eye-opener re: consumer rights on returns.
Appreciate it.
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We’ve got some old mattresses in our spare rooms, and rather than go to the expense of buying new mattresses that would only be used for visitors, we are looking to buy mattress toppers. We purchased one at Aldi for our own bed and are very happy with it. Unfortunately we haven’t seen them back in their special buys. Apart from avoiding alleged cooling gel mattress toppers, what should we look for?
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Hi @Sparkle I have moved your request to an existing thread. The preceding discussions may provide you with some assistance.
Perhaps Choice staff @jhook or @BrendanMays may be able to advise if there are any plans to look at mattress toppers.
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We have plans to update our mattress reviews, but I’m not sure about toppers in the short term. I’ll send over this request to our product testers.
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In my recent experience, mattress toppers are something a lot of people are interested in buying.
I recently stayed in a motel which had very comfortable beds. They used memory foam toppers and we found out the brand (Milly 7.5cm). The price for that brand online varies from $299 to $495.
I have a family new mattress but it is too hard for my partner so I thought this might be a less expensive option than a new mattress.
Testing to determine if this relatively expensive option is significantly better than the other types of topper selling from under $100 would be very worthwhile .
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A test would be worthwhile, and the test possibly shouldn’t only be based on comfort (subjective test), but longevity of the fill material used for the topper (memory foam, memory fibre, wool, polyester etc) to retain its shape.
We have recently bought some memory fibre ($59.95) and Bamboo rayon/Polyester ($64.95) ones to see how they perform over time. The memory fibre is marketed as ‘memory resistant micro ball fill’ so it will be interesting to see if they hold their shape better than the bamboo rayon/polyester ones. We have only had them for a week or two so still very much early days.
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I see mattress toppers advertised as an alternative to replacing your old mattress. As most people I know replace when the springs or foam have collapsed etc, a topper won’t help and the prices I have seen on TV are near to a new (Choice Recommended) mattress.
We have a single bed topper, initially bought so the two single bed mattresses would be at the same height on top of a king sized mattress. After a few years, this is what the polypropylene cover looks like with the layer underneath disintegrating and the foam layer below that starting to wear and collapse. The tag has fallen off, so I can’t tell you the brand. I thought we would get more wear out of it.
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