The top of a Swedish bed stays fresh and plush

There has been increased interest in “Swedish” mattresses. The lines that have made their way to the US are Duxiana, Hastens and Carpe Diem. They share a very distinctive plush feel. The primary reason for the distinctive plushness is that they all share the “top mattress” design. It is a 2-4 inch separate pillow top. Since it is not connected to the main mattress you get an immediate response that cannot be duplicated by any other pillow top technology. The origin of the “top mattress” is due to the harsh long dark winters that they experience in Sweden, everything in their homes would get musty. The Swedes have always known that if they brought out their household items into the sun, when they experience their short summer, the sun would freshen everything up. They did not know the scientific reason was that sunlight is a source of UV radiation, which is used by hospitals and modern air purifiers to disinfect. They just knew that it worked. Bringing out an entire mattress was not practical, but a top layer was relatively easy to remove and brought out into the sun to be aired and freshened. They also noticed a huge collateral benefit of this separate top layer, what was to become the “top mattress”, it gave the overall sleep system a unique plush and more responsive feel, since it was not restrained by the main mattress. Another reason for the plush responsive feel of the Swedish mattresses is that they utilize 2 or more layers of coils on top of each other. There is a very small percentage of “conventional” mattresses that utilize a coil on coil system. That would be the few that still utilize coils in the “box spring”. But the coils in those rare true “box springs” are very stiff and aren’t as responsive as the base coils in the “Swedish” lines. An exception would be Vi-Spring from England that does utilize pocketed coils in their “divan”, box spring.

How do you tell one Swede from another?

So what are their differences? Duxiana utilizes a responsive continuous coil technology. One wire essentially makes up an entire coil layer. And depending on the model, there can be up to 3 layers of coils. The two possible disadvantages of this coil technology is that most experts consider the individually wrapped pocketed coil to have better overall response and that a continuous coil transfers movement through the entire mattress, where a pocketed coil isolates movement. Both Hastens and Carpe Diem utilize the pocketed coil technology. Hastens, means horse in Swedish. They utilize as their cushioning components, natural fibers, the primary one being horse hair. Horse hair is very durable, and relatively resilient. Duxiana and Carpe Diem utilize some natural fibers but the main cushioning component is natural latex. Latex is incredibly resilient, no maintenance is required. Fibers, no matter how resilient, will over time and with extended use, mat down and compress. They will need some fluffing and “massaging” to get them to recover. There is one other mattress that is referred to as a “Swedish mattress”, Tempur-pedic, but that is another story for another time.