Does Off-Gassing Your Mattress Actually Work? ✨Ep. 64

You know that chemical smell that a new mattress expells right out of the packaging? Their is a prevailing belief that the chemicals you’re smelling just need time to off-gas. Today, I’m busting that myth!

And don’t worry if you believe this, I used to believe it too! But what you’re smelling are VOCs A.K.A - Volatile organic compounds. We’ll be diving into studies that have been done on off-gassing. Turns out, these chemicals stay in your mattress. It doesn’t matter how much time you give them to “off-gas.”

So what’s the solution? How can we make sure that we’re not up close and personal with harmful chemicals every night? Personally, I buy VOC free mattresses. Currently, there are only two certifications that can guarantee your mattress doesn’t contain VOCs.

I’m going into the specifics of each certification and some of my favorite mattress brands to look out for. So, next time you’re in the market for a new mattress, make sure to tune into this episode!

In this episode, we’re chatting about:

• The myth of off-gassing
• What are VOCs and why should they be avoided?
• How you can find VOC free mattresses

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

If you are anything like me. There was a point in time and maybe you still believe this where you thought you could purchase a mattress or some other kind of furniture like a rug or a new desk or a new bookcase, and you know that smell that comes with it when you unwrap the wrapping and you can just smell the chemicals just oozing out of it. And so you put it in the garage or you put it on your porch or you quote, unquote air it out and then, once it doesn't smell anymore, you believe that it's off-gassed all of those chemicals. I get why people believe that. I actually believed that at one time too, but today I'm busting that myth that that actually works. As always, I'm Wendy and I'm the host of the Detox Dilemma podcast, an environmental toxins attorney turned clean living coach. Today's hot take episode is going to break down the myth. Can you off gas your mattress? Let's get to it. It makes total sense that people believe this and why I believed it for a really long time too.

Speaker 1: 1:07

When you smell something like the smell of a chemical, it's obvious we have really heightened senses when it comes to our sense of smell. It's where we know there's danger. Like don't drink something. If you can smell, there's something bad in it. You can smell. If milk is spoiled, it's intended to protect us. So when it comes to buying something like in it, you can smell, if milk is spoiled, it's intended to protect us. So when it comes to buying something like a mattress, when you take all of the packaging off of the mattress and it has such a strong smell to it, then that becomes obvious. Oh my gosh, there's chemicals here. Let's you know, let them quote, unquote off gas. The idea being that whatever chemicals are in that mattress are going to flow away into the ether and they're not going to come back and they're just going to be gone. And once we can't smell that danger anymore, we're good, we're not in danger.

Speaker 1: 1:58

And what you're smelling when that comes into your house are volatile organic compounds or VOCs. And VOCs are, you know, anything? You can really smell anything that dissipates quickly, anything that is volatile in the air, and that's where the smell comes from. Not all VOCs are bad. You know smelling flowers or banana ripening or diffusing essential oils those are also volatile organic compounds. They're very light in the air and they're very volatile.

Speaker 1: 2:29

But when we're talking about mattresses, the VOCs we're talking about come from a very common source, which is a lot of mattresses are made out of polyurethane. Now, polyurethane can contain a host of VOCs, but they're toxic VOCs. Things like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, formaldehyde, butylated hydroxy toluene and acetaldehyde. These things are bad. Exposure to these VOCs can cause anything and everything from eye, nose, throat irritation, issues like migraines, headaches, organ damage, and they've also been associated with cancer. They're known carcinogens, so this idea that they all just disappear after you can't smell them anymore is very false.

Speaker 1: 3:16

In fact, the longer you sleep on a mattress, the more VOCs it releases, specifically at night while you're sleeping. See that polyurethane, which makes up the memory foam that everybody loves so much, that's so comfortable. As that memory foam starts to break down, it actually releases more and more of these VOCs, and the one thing that actually makes it release even more is your body heat. A study done in 2019 took a look at VOC emissions from multiple different kinds of polyurethane mattresses to try to figure out under what conditions does it release the most VOCs. They took eight different types of polyurethane mattresses and they tested them under a bunch of different conditions different temperature, different humidities and different CO2 concentrations and what they found was under sleeping conditions. So when you or your child or your infant is lying on their mattress, it raises the temperature, it raises the relative humidity and the breathing out of the mouth, especially when you're so close to the mattress, creates more CO2 concentration and the amount of VOCs significantly increased under those conditions. So your mattress isn't the most toxic the moment that you buy it. And off-gassing those chemicals isn't getting rid of the fact that polyurethane is actually made from those chemicals. They don't go anywhere, they don't disappear. They're still in your mattress, and the conditions that release them the most are when you're sleeping in your bed, where you are being exposed to them the most.

Speaker 1: 5:00

One of the best investments I've ever made for my kids and for myself, for my health, was to get an organic mattress that has no VOCs. So, in a world where there's so much greenwashing, how do you know that the mattress that you're buying does not have harmful chemicals in it? There are only two certifications currently out there that guarantee that the mattress you're buying does not contain these harmful VOCs, and one of them is the Global Organic Textile Standard, or GOTS for short, and the other one is a Global Organic Late latex standard, which for mattresses that are made out of natural latex. That would be the certification that you'd be looking for. Another certification you'll see often is Oko Tech Standard 100, and while this is good and it does set limits for the emission of harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and other VOCs, it doesn't ensure that the mattress's fiber is produced organically and there are some chemicals still allowed, but it does also ban flame retardants, colorants and allergenic dyes. So if you can't find or it's out of your reach your financial reach to get a mattress that is GOTS certified, then Okotex standard would be the next step down and still be significantly healthier for you than conventional polyurethane made mattresses that are out on the market.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Naturopedic is my number one top choice. Even our pets have naturopedic mattresses on them and, at a minimum, if you just need to start somewhere, go with a GOTS certified naturopedic pillow, so that the thing that you're sleeping on and that you're breathing onto is a pillow that's not releasing all of those VOCs. If you're looking for something more affordable, I love the company Hapsi. Hapsi has mattresses that have both those certifications but are a little bit more affordable. I have links to both Naturopedic and Hapsi in the show notes. Now that we've busted that myth, I hope you learned something and I hope the next time you're shopping for furniture or a rug or a mattress and you're bringing something into your home, you think about this a little bit. Try your best within your budget to shop for things that don't have the chemicals to begin with. Thank you.