How do you get rid of the new mattress smell? What causes the odor? Is the new mattress smell dangerous to your health?
We want to talk about this and what you can do NOW. Plus, give you a tip I recommend to everyone who says they have this problem.
Why Does Your New Mattress Smell?
Due to laws and your benefit, you may find your new mattress smells. Every mattress is designed to have some fire retardant in it, and not only that, but during the manufacturing stage, a memory foam mattress gets pumped with gases to help expand the materials to the correct shape.
This creates off-gassing which comes from volatile organic compounds, also known as VOCs. Items containing VOCs are commonly found around your home; the smell is more noticeable on your mattress because it’s bigger.
Take all of that and compress it in plastic wrap to keep the mattress sterilized and shipping ready, and you can get a stinky mattress. The longer it stays in the plastic cover, the longer it will take to get rid of the smell.
The scent is often compared to the smell of paint, new car smell, or strong chemical smell. If that sounds like your mattress, then read on.
Should You Be Worried?
I know it sounds scary with the words like VOC, chemicals, polyurethane, fire retardants, and formaldehyde gets thrown around, but if you stick to buying the right mattresses, you’ll be fine.
It’s not good to breathe in VOCs, but the amount released in a mattress is quite small and won’t hurt most. This does not stop the hot debate though, nor should we gloss over it entirely, but for the most part, you’ll be fine.
The right memory foam mattresses to buy will be the ones that are CertiPUR-US certified. This is a third-party that makes sure every manufacturer does it safely. This certification is to protect the consumer and I would never buy a memory foam mattress unless they’re approved by them.
If you have asthma or have chemical sensitivities or get an allergic reaction, then you might need to reconsider your mattress choice altogether. I recommend looking at something like a Natual Latex Mattress.
How To Get Rid Of The Smell
- The first thing you need to do when you get a memory foam mattress or any mattress shipped to your doorstep is to remove it from the plastic wrap and place it in an open environment.
- Allow the mattress to expand for 48 hours in the open room with plenty of air flow. If you can place the mattress in a dry clean area in your garage so it can air out, even leave the garage door cracked a little.
- How long you air out your mattress depends on your sensitivity to smells, 2 days should be plenty for most, but some have gone a week.
- For the garage-less, a fan in the window works well.
- If you don’t have a garage or room with a window, then an air purifier with carbon filter does the job. The carbon filters help with odors and are your best shot in this situation.
The Tip! – The Best Thing To Do
The best thing you can do about the chemical smell of your memory foam mattress is to get a mattress encasement. The mattress encasement will put a barrier between you and the mattress.
Other benefits of the mattress encasement will be for protecting it from spills, bugs, and to help keep the warranty intact. It’s a win-win for many reasons.
What Not To Do
Everyone all over the internet likes to recommend baking soda for anything to do with odors.
Do NOT use baking soda!
The reason why you don’t use baking soda is that it won’t help with this type of odor and another reason is that when you need to clean up the baking soda, people use vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners can get destroyed by vacuuming up baking soda so no point of killing your vacuum and giving yourself another issue to deal with.
The Crazy Stupid Idea – Don’t Do!
We all have that friend or family member who solved a problem with a crazy method. Well, I have one, and first off I don’t recommend doing this as it’s not smart. My cousin put a new mattress on the top of his car and drove around for an hour to “blow the mattress out.”
While this sounds like a great idea all you’re doing is collecting dust and other allergens to your mattress.
I only mentioned this so that others don’t do it even though on the surface it sounds like a swell idea. He had pollen on his mattress for days that he could not get out.