Do Wayfair Mattresses Have Fiberglass?

If you want a safe and healthy mattress, you’ll need a mattress without fiberglass. However, not all mattresses fit this bill. The good news is that finding a mattress to fit your needs on a convenient site like WayFair is possible.

The bad news is that not every mattress on this site is free from fiberglass, and it can sometimes be hard to tell what you’re getting. This means if you decide to use this site, you’ll need to pay attention when you’re shopping to ensure you get a model that is fiberglass-free.

The WayFair Mattress Brand

WayFair is not a mattress brand, per se. Rather, they’re a site that offers lots of different brands of mattresses. Many of them are designed to fit within tighter budgets, such as their futon mattresses.

Some of their more affordable mattresses do use fiberglass. The mattresses that contain fiberglass include:

• Lucid mattresses
• Zinus mattresses
• LinenSpa mattresses
• Lull mattresses
• Molblly mattresses
• Molecule mattresses

Some WayFair mattresses, on the other hand, used to contain fiberglass in the past, but don’t anymore, such as Novilla mattresses.

And some brands sold on WayFair have never contained fiberglass, such as Sealy and Avenco mattresses.

This means you’ll need to use caution when shopping for mattresses without fiberglass on WayFair. Make sure you are looking at your potential new mattress’s ingredient list to ensure it is free from fiberglass before you purchase. If whether a mattress has fiberglass is not listed on WayFair, search the brand and model to see what their site and reviews say.

What is Fiberglass?

Fiberglass is a special type of reinforced plastic that contains microscopic glass fibers to make the plastic stronger without compromising its flexibility. Fiberglass can be found in just about every part of your environment, from certain components of your home to your automobile to your favorite sporting equipment and even your boat.

The fiberglass that goes inside mattresses is commonly known as glass cloth. In this iteration of fiberglass, the fiberglass is used to create a yarn that can be woven into a fabric sheet. The fabric sheet is then used as a wrap around the internal components of the mattress.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses Without Memory Foam

Why Would a Mattress Have Fiberglass?

You may not know it, but most mattresses contain a lot of highly flammable ingredients. This is especially true of synthetic foam and fiber, like memory foam and polyester. To protect consumers from their mattresses bursting into flame, all mattresses made in the USA are legally required to meet certain fire safety standards.

Fiberglass helps mattress manufacturers make their mattresses less flammable because it doesn’t ignite. It melts. If fiberglass is exposed to heat, the fabric will melt and form a shell around the foam inside the mattress. This prevents it from igniting itself.

There are plenty of other materials that can make mattresses fireproof, but fiberglass is the cheapest of them. This means mattress manufacturers looking to create affordable mattresses are the most likely to use this material. However, having fiberglass inside your mattress is dangerous enough that it really isn’t worth saving a few bucks.

Drawbacks of Fiberglass

The main drawback of having fiberglass inside a mattress is that it can threaten your health. Fiberglass exposure can be dangerous because when the tiny glass particles come into contact with your body, they leave microscopic cuts all over everything they touch.

If they contact your eyes, they can cause irritation and even injury. If they contact your skin, they can leave you with skin irritation and rashes. If you breathe them in, they can leave you with chronic lung problems, including infections.

And don’t think you’re safe just because you have a mattress cover between you and the fiberglass sock in your mattress. Infinitesimal glass shards can make their way out of the sock and through the cover because you are constantly moving around on your mattress.

This means any mattress that contains fiberglass has the potential to expose you to it. And once the material escapes, cleaning up fiberglass is quite the hassle. Sometimes, professional intervention is required to remove all fiberglass particles from a home. For all these reasons, it is better to seek mattresses that do not contain fiberglass.

Benefits of Fiberglass

There really is no benefit to having fiberglass inside a mattress. The only reason to have it is that it is a cheap flame retardant. But since there are so many safer and healthier alternatives that do not cost all that much more, you don’t have any reason to buy a mattress containing this dangerous material.

Fiberglass Alternatives for Mattresses

There are several alternatives to fiberglass that are equally or even more adept at preventing fire and meeting flammability standards. Silica fiber is one of the most common synthetic alternatives to fiberglass. Silica is just as good as fiberglass at preventing fires from starting or spreading, but it is less hazardous to your health.

Vegan mattresses often contain thistle or viscose fabrics made from cellulose fiber. This cellulose is often derived from eco-friendly sources like bamboo or eucalyptus.

One of the most popular and best fire retardants for mattresses on the market is wool. Wool is naturally flame resistant. It is not only difficult to ignite, but if it does combust, it can extinguish flame internally.

To provide one such example, Saatva mattresses use thistle and wool instead of fiberglass. However, this means their mattresses, though fiberglass-free, are not strictly vegan.

Wool is also a great way to enhance the comfort of a mattress because it adds an extra layer of pressure relief and breathability. It’s a recurring ingredient in many organic latex mattresses for this reason.

How to Tell if a Mattress Has Fiberglass

Mattresses are required by law to list the ingredients they use and the percentages of each ingredient in the mattress. If you’re shopping for a new mattress, this mattress should come with a sheet or an online list that tells you if it contains fiberglass.

If you already have a mattress and want to know if it has fiberglass, search for its ingredient list online using the brand and model of your mattress. If you can’t find a list, look at the mattress tag. Care tags that specifically forbid removing the cover often do so because there is fiberglass underneath.

You can also research a particular mattress online to see if reviews note if it has fiberglass. Aside from the ones we’ve already mentioned, other brands and sellers that have come into question for carrying mattresses with fiberglass include:

• Nectar mattresses
• Vibe mattresses
• Ashley Furniture mattresses
• Leesa mattresses
• Allswell mattresses
• Some Helix mattresses
• Big Lots mattresses
• Amazon mattresses
• Walmart mattresses

Is WayFair a Good Mattress Brand?

WayFair is not technically a mattress brand. Rather, they are a site that sells lots of different mattress brands, sometimes at steep discounts. For this reason, many people are tempted to shop on WayFair for their next mattress.

We would suggest avoiding this if possible and buying fiberglass-free mattresses direct from their sources. Buying directly from the mattress manufacturer not only ensures you’re getting what you think you are. It also offers other benefits like better mattress warranties and customer service.

If you choose to shop on WayFair or other discount sites, use caution. Make sure you look at the exact brand, model, and year of the online mattress you’re considering.

Also, make sure you are looking at the ingredient list for every mattress you consider so that you can know exactly what is in it before you buy. The best budget mattresses are still quite well-made, boasting fiberglass-free construction and certified materials.

Affordable mattress brands that include fiberglass alternatives include:

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

FAQs

How can I tell if a used mattress has fiberglass?

Used mattresses may or may not come with a physical ingredient list. Many mattress manufacturers now post such lists online. So do a search for the brand name and model name of your used mattress to see if it has fiberglass.

If you are unable to find this information even then, look at the care instructions on the tag attached to the mattress cover. If this tag prohibits you from removing the cover, you should suspect that there is fiberglass underneath. This is especially true for low-cost mattresses.

Because used mattresses have so much uncertainty in their history and do not come with a mattress warranty, we generally recommend avoiding them. Instead, it’s better to replace your mattress with a completely new model.

What should I do if I find out my mattress has fiberglass?

If you find out your mattress has fiberglass, the best thing you can do is replace it. This is especially true if it is an older mattress because the cover may have aged and become more susceptible to allowing glass particles to seep through. However, sometimes a new mattress is not tenable. In this case, there is something you can do.

Impermeable mattress protectors are created to keep moisture and dirt from seeping down into your mattress. But they can work in reverse by preventing the glass shards from the glass cloth sock inside your mattress from making their way up to you. This can protect you from fiberglass exposure if you are unable to get rid of your fiberglass mattress.

Can I remove the fiberglass in my mattress myself?

It is never a good idea to try to remove a fiberglass fire barrier from your mattress. Not only can doing so result in the very fiberglass exposure you’re trying to avoid. It can also leave your mattress more susceptible to fire.

If you realize your mattress has fiberglass inside it, the best thing you can do is replace it or use a mattress protector to shield you from the fiberglass. A mattress protector will prevent the glass particles inside your mattress from working their way through the cover and coming into contact with your body.

What are the symptoms of fiberglass exposure?

Fiberglass exposure can leave you with a range of symptoms, depending on what area of your body is exposed. For example, fiberglass contact with your skin can leave you with redness, rashes, and dermatitis.

Fiberglass contact with the eyes can leave you with dry eye symptoms and even eye damage. And fiberglass contact with your airways and lungs can leave you with breathing problems and lung infections.

How much should I pay for a mattress without fiberglass?

There is a wide range of prices you can expect to pay when shopping for mattresses. Mattress prices can vary depending on size, material, brand, and a host of different factors. For instance, a latex mattress will virtually always cost more than an innerspring mattress, regardless of whether either of them contains fiberglass.

However, the fact that a mattress does not contain fiberglass should not be the thing that pushes its price way up. Most of the time, you can expect to pay as little as $50 to $100 more for a mattress without fiberglass than for a comparable one with it.

Bottom Line

Finding a WayFair mattress that doesn’t have fiberglass doesn’t have to be a hassle. If you’re going to shop WayFair, make sure you’re buying one of the models that uses a safer fiberglass alternative for fire protection.

Look at the ingredients used in every mattress you consider, and ensure you’re getting a model, year, and brand that does not use fiberglass as a fire barrier. That way, you never have to worry about exposure to this potentially harmful material and can rest secure that you’re sleeping on one of the best mattresses.