Do Vibe Mattresses Contain Fiberglass?

If you’ve spent much time researching your next mattress, you might have found out that mattresses containing fiberglass are all over the market. While there are other alternatives, fiberglass is the cheapest way for mattresses to meet governmental regulations on fire safety.

Unfortunately, fiberglass might be the cheapest option, but it’s not the safest option. And it shows up in many low-end, affordable mattresses, including the Vibe mattress lineup.

The Vibe Mattress Brand

Vibe mattresses have become more popular in recent years because of their low cost and convenient availability on Amazon. However, there’s a major problem with these affordable mattresses – they use unhealthy and potentially hazardous materials, including fiberglass.

You’ll find a fiberglass fire barrier woven underneath the cover of the Vibe mattress. This can pose serious health risks if you wind up exposed to the fireproof sock inside this mattress.

What is Fiberglass?

Fiberglass is a type of plastic that has been reinforced with tiny glass particles. This stronger version of plastic actually makes a great industrial material. It can be used to make everything from sporting equipment to home insulation and even vehicles, including boats and canoes.

In fact, fiberglass is one of the best materials for making things like paddle boards and surfboards, as well as their accessories. However, when you stuff it inside your mattress, it creates a whole different set of issues.

SEE ALSO: Softest Mattress in a Box

Why Would a Mattress Have Fiberglass?

Since fiberglass appears in industrial insulation and surfboards, you might be wondering why it would wind up in your mattress. Fiberglass is an incredibly versatile material, and it can be stretched into yarn and woven into a synthetic fabric known as glass cloth.

This type of fiberglass can then be made into a sock that goes over the foam layers of your mattress, directly underneath its cover. This barrier exists to prevent fire.

Believe it or not, the ingredients of your mattress are often highly flammable. This is especially true if you have a mattress containing synthetic fibers or foam, like memory foam. In order to prevent your bed from accidentally bursting into flame, all mattress manufacturers are required to place fire barriers inside the bed to ensure it cannot ignite.

Fiberglass is not a combustible material. If it’s exposed to extreme heat, it will melt rather than burst into flame. This will create a barrier between you and the flammable foam beneath the fiberglass, and it will slow or even stop the spread of fire inside your mattress.

Drawbacks of Fiberglass

Fiberglass is actually a pretty dangerous material to have inside a mattress. There are a lot of potential drawbacks to sleeping on a mattress with fiberglass inside it, and they all have to do with fiberglass exposure.

The glass particles in fiberglass are tiny, and they can float in the air and land on surfaces, coating them in invisible shards of glass. This can leave you with skin irritation and rashes, as the glass makes microscopic cuts all over your body.

It can also leave you with eye irritation and even lung issues. In fact, long-term exposure to fiberglass in the air can lead to chronic lung infections and even permanent damage.

You might think that there are not a lot of ways for you to be exposed to the fiberglass inside your mattress, but this is just not true. As a mattress ages, its cover becomes thinner and the weave looser, which can allow fiberglass particles to work their way through to the sleep surface.

Another issue is if you take off the cover. Many mattresses come with zippable covers that allow you to remove them and wash them. If you do that with a mattress containing fiberglass, you can send fiberglass particles flying all around your bedroom.

Another major issue is if you get a bed in a box. When manufacturers stuff their beds into boxes, the rolling and smashing of the bed can cause the fiberglass sock inside the mattress to tear and push the glass particles through the cover. This means you might wind up with a fiberglass-covered mattress brand new out of the box.

Benefits of Fiberglass

There aren’t really any benefits to having fiberglass inside a mattress other than it being cheap fire protection. Mattress companies looking to save a buck on manufacturing will often use fiberglass in mattresses being marketed as affordable.

Naturally, using fiberglass in mattresses does help bring the price down. But when it’s at the cost of risking your health, it’s better to spend a little more for a better-quality product.

Fiberglass Alternatives for Mattresses

The good news is there are plenty of alternatives to a fiberglass fire barrier. One of the best alternative fire barriers in eco-friendly mattresses is wool. Sheep’s wool is a naturally incombustible material.

It is very difficult to ignite wool without an accelerant, and wool often is able to extinguish fire internally. It will not melt like fiberglass, and it is a natural and safe way to make mattresses inflammable.

The best part about a wool fire barrier is it can help make your mattress even more comfortable by adding a layer of breathability and pressure relief. It’s a simple material that can help establish a cooling mattress. Other natural fiber alternatives to fiberglass fire protection include silk, thistle, and other plant-based textiles.

How to Tell if a Mattress Has Fiberglass

Mattresses are required by law to label all their ingredients. This means if a mattress has fiberglass, the label will tell you that it does, and it should also give you a percentage of the mattress’s ingredients that contain fiberglass. However, the manufacturer may try to be slightly misleading about it, using terms like “glass fiber” or “glass wool.”

Furthermore, most mattresses without fiberglass will have this feature mentioned on their websites or in other advertising. If your mattress doesn’t have a label, look at its care instructions. Mattresses that expressly prohibit you from removing the cover typically do so because they contain fiberglass.

You can also do research into particular mattress brands and retailers that have come into question for their known use of fiberglass:

• Lucid mattresses
• Ashley Furniture mattresses
• Zinus mattresses
• Nectar mattresses
• Linenspa mattresses
• Layla mattresses
• Leesa mattresses
• Allswell mattresses
• Casper mattresses
• Big Lots mattresses
• Amazon mattresses
• Some Helix mattresses
• Wayfair mattresses

Is Vibe a Good Mattress Brand?

Vibe is not a particularly great mattress brand. While it does use CertiPUR-US® certified memory foam and feature gel memory foam, it may be less durable than other memory foam mattresses due to cost-cutting. Vibe also uses fiberglass in their mattress covers.

As we’ve seen, this causes more issues than it’s worth. When you’re looking for the most comfortable mattress, don’t be afraid to invest in what you need for a good night’s rest. To streamline your shopping experience, here are a few of our favorite mattress brands with fiberglass-free mattresses:

• Amerisleep mattresses
• Puffy mattresses
• Novilla mattresses
• Sweetnight mattresses
• Saatva mattresses
• Tuft and Needle mattresses
• Most IKEA mattresses
• Zoma mattresses
• Vaya mattresses

FAQs

What can happen if my mattress has fiberglass?

If your mattress contains fiberglass, you could be in for a number of problems. Fiberglass exposure can lead to skin rashes and chronic irritation, chronic lung infections and breathing problems, and eye issues.

This is because the tiny glass fibers come into contact with your eyes, skin, and airways and make tiny scratches all over them. If your mattress contains fiberglass, you’re sleeping on a source of constant potential exposure to this harmful material.

Is fiberglass dangerous in products besides mattresses?

Fiberglass can be dangerous in other materials besides mattresses, but there are several key differences. For one thing, your level of risk of exposure to fiberglass is significantly lower in products that you’re not constantly touching.

If there’s fiberglass in your car’s brake pads and bumpers, for instance, you’re probably not going to be in situations that could lead to exposure to that fiberglass all that often.

You also have to think of the type of fiberglass. There are plenty of hardened fiberglass items that do not release particles of glass into the air because of their structured nature. For instance, you’re likely not going to be exposed to fiberglass inside your surfboard because of its rigid nature and its hard shell.

How much more do mattresses without fiberglass cost?

You might be surprised to learn that mattresses without fiberglass don’t have to cost an arm and a leg more than mattresses with it. Expect to pay up to a few hundred dollars more for an affordable mattress without fiberglass. While this may seem like a lot, mattresses without fiberglass are often better quality, with materials that establish a mattress that won’t sag. This means you won’t be paying to replace them as often.

Can a mattress topper protect me from fiberglass in my mattress?

A mattress topper can help protect you from fiberglass by providing an extra barrier between you and the cover of the mattress. However, tiny glass particles can still work their way through the foam of the topper. This means a mattress topper is better than nothing but still no substitute for an impermeable protector or a fiberglass-free mattress.

What should I do if my mattress already contains fiberglass?

If your mattress contains fiberglass and you cannot afford to replace it, make sure you’re using an impermeable mattress protector. Mattress protectors help keep fluids and dirt from reaching the mattress itself. But they can work the other way as well by keeping dangerous ingredients inside your mattress from reaching you.

Bottom Line

Of course, between dealing with the rising cost of living and high inflation, you’re probably looking to save as much money as you can on your new mattress. However, getting a mattress that contains fiberglass is not the way to do it. There are plenty of affordable and durable mattresses that do not use this dangerous material.