Nolah is an award-winning mattress maker that’s one of the best-selling mattress in a box brands. Mattresses by Nolah are highly touted by review websites for their versatile, edge supporting, organic, and cooling features.
However, many other popular mattress brands have caught some unwanted attention for selling beds that leak fiberglass particles that cause contamination and health issues. I decided to take a closer look at Nolah because of this, to find out whether its mattresses have fiberglass or not.
Thankfully, Nolah turned out to be a fiberglass-free mattress brand relying only on hydrated silica as the flame retardant material in its flame barriers.
What Nolah Says About Fiberglass
When shopping at the Nolah website, each Nolah mattress product page states the mattress is fiberglass-free in one way or another. Here’s some examples of what the Nolah mattress pages say about fiberglass:
“Nolah is committed to our customers’ comfort and safety, and all our mattresses are 100 percent fiberglass-free. Rigorous testing and strict certifications demonstrate the safety of all materials used in our mattresses.” -Nolah
“Wool is naturally flame retardant, creating a safety barrier without the harsh chemicals or fiberglass found in other mattresses.” -Nolah
I do find it a bit weird that the Nolah FAQ page returns no results when “fiberglass” is input in the search blank. Fiberglass awareness is pretty big in the mattress world, so I figured it would definitely be addressed in the Frequently Asked Questions. I guess not.
Asking Nolah Directly About Fiberglass
I like to get direct answers regarding fiberglass, so I emailed Nolah in May of 2022 and asked them directly about fiberglass. Here is the exact questions I asked Nolah:
“I see that some of the mattresses use TENCEL (Rayon), do any of your mattresses contain Fiberglass, Modacrylic, Polyester, or Silica in the covers or any other part of the mattress? The website says there are no chemicals, so there’s no Fire Retardant sprays like Antimony or anything else sprayed on your mattresses or embedded in the fibers? Where is your Latex sourced from?” via Email to Nolah
This is the response that I received from Nolah after asking about fiberglass and other mattress materials:
“..the Nolah Original, Signature, and Evolution mattresses use a safe fire retardant sock. The sock is made with woven silica and extinguishes the fire before it reaches the actual mattress foam. Our Nolah Natural and Nurture mattresses use organic wool, a natural fire barrier. We would never include fiberglass in our mattresses. We never have and never will. ” -Nolah (Email Reply)
So, once again, it’s in writing that Nolah does not use fiberglass. Nolah not only says there is no fiberglass in its mattresses, but it also divulges what materials the flame barriers use instead of fiberglass. Mattress makers that transparently tell consumers what material their flame barrier uses instead of fiberglass are often the most trustworthy.
However, when a mattress maker says silica is in their beds, I like to dig a bit deeper into how exactly it’s used. Some mattress brands disguise fiberglass as silica, and being more careful is always the safest route when it comes to fiberglass in beds.
Following Up with Nolah about Silica
I contacted Nolah through its website’s live chat feature. I asked about fiberglass, and the response was nearly identical to the one Nolah gave in my email. This time, however, I decided to push a bit harder on the silica use method. This is what I said to Nolah:
“I’m fairly certain ‘woven silica’ is just a funny way of saying fiberglass. Unless you have information that shows otherwsie.” via Live Chat to Nolah
Here is the live chat reply that I received from Nolah regarding the woven silica flame barrier use in the Original, Signature, and Evolution lines of mattresses.
“The silica sock is made from naturally hydrated silica.” – Nolah
To summarize, some Nolah mattresses use wool instead of fiberglass for a flame barrier, while the other Nolah mattresses use hydrated silica in their flame barriers. However, the Nolah live chat representative that I spoke to wasn’t sure how the hydrated silica was used in the flame barrier.
Does Nolah Contain Fiberglass or Not?
It’s honestly hard to say for certain, Nolah isn’t very forthcoming regarding its use of silica, nor as informative on its website as some other brands.
However, I have not been able to find a single mention of fiberglass being found in Nolah mattresses – I’ve searched reviews, social media, as well as the CPSC incident reports.
I feel it’s most likely safe to say that Nolah does not use fiberglass.
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Last Updated on May 3, 2024
While shopping for his daughter’s first “big girl” bed in 2019, John learned about the hidden dangers of fiberglass in mattresses. Since then, he’s made it his mission to expose as much hidden fiberglass in mattresses as possible. His ultimate goal is federal regulations that ban fiberglass from being used in mattresses, or at least a law that requires it to be listed as a material on required tags.