NOTICE OF NON-AFFILIATION: FiberglassFree.com is NOT endorsed by, affiliated, associated, or in ANY way connected with Stearns & Foster, Tempur-Pedic, Sealy, or Tempur Sealy. Read more here.
I was recently asked if mattresses by Stearns and Foster have fiberglass, and I wasn’t sure. Since it’s a sister brand to TempurPedic/Sealy, under parent organization TempurSealy, I thought it would be good to take a closer look at its mattress materials. Of the three sister brands, Stearns and Foster sells the most luxurious mattresses.
It would be logical to think a luxurious brand like S&F would be free of glass fiber, but you’d be wrong for doing so because there is glass fiber in the flame barriers.
What is most concerning is the company’s reluctance to reveal the materials in its mattress flame barriers unless directly asked if they contain glass fiber.
UPDATE: Just kidding! What’s actually MOST concerning is the Cease and Desist letter I got in the mail, along with threats of DMCA takedowns and legal actions. These are the reasons for the GIANT non-affiliation notice above, as well as the third-party trademark disclaimer at the bottom of the page. Shame on you for trying to bully and scare me into deleting my webpage.
However, even though my use of the Stearns and Foster name is fully under Fair Use, it’s for these reasons the “&” symbol has been replaced with “and” throughout this rest of this article. Semantic bullshittery is the reason “fiberglass” has been replaced with “glass fiber”. It’s also why S&F is used in paragraph headings from here forward.
Just covering my ass since Tempur wants to be shitty instead of just using different materials, or at least have some transparency regarding the materials it does use.
S&F Chat Bot Not Helpful Regarding Flame Barrier
I went to the official Stearns and Foster website and initiated a live chat conversation. Annoyingly, the chat started with a bot I had to converse with before being allowed to talk to an actual person. However, the bot chat did give me one piece of information that was interesting to see regarding flame barrier materials.
“Stearns & Foster® uses three technologies to create a flame retardant barrier, all three of which do not pose a hazard to consumers.” -S&F
Dang, three different technologies to create a flame barrier? That sounds fancy, but the chatbot would not go into more detail. However, I was able to request a real chat representative to talk to for clarification.
S&F Live-Chat Avoids Flame Barrier Questions
Once connected to an actual person, I asked about the three different technologies in the flame barrier that the chatbot had mentioned. The chat representative just replied with a copy and paste of the same thing the chatbot said earlier. Next, I reiterated the question to ask precisely what three technologies the flame barrier uses, and they just said they did not know.
“We unfortunately do not know the name of these 3 technologies.” -S&F
At this point in the conversation, I was a bit annoyed. I was also questioning the chat representative’s ability to offer good customer service if they did not know about the materials going into the mattresses. I decided to reiterate the question to be more forward, I also made it multiple-choice! Over the years, my patience with deceptive mattress makers has gotten pretty thin. Sorry, not sorry.
S&F Uses Core Spun Glass Fiber in its Mattresses
“Conversely, the glass fibers in our mattress products are comprised of a core-spun technology that encases the glass in a flexible protective sheath housed within the internal mattress design, and is completely safe and inaccessible in normal use, even if the cover is removed. To ensure safety and quality for our customers, Stearns & Foster only uses this core-spun glass fiber technology, and regularly conducts independent testing to ensure continued safety, and that the materials within all Tempur Sealy products meet or exceed all regulatory compliance.” -S&F
Finally, I had gotten a straight answer. One of the technologies used in its flame barrier is core-spun glass fibers. That basically means the glass fiber strands are wrapped in a cover made from some other material. I’m not sure what the other two technologies are that are supposedly used in the flame barriers, since they weren’t revealed. Maybe the glass fiber is the only technology.
S&F Chat Bot Fiberglass vs. Glass Fiber Semantics
Here’s another example of how Stearns and Foster uses clever wordplay and semantics to avoid admitting its flame barriers have glass fiber. In this YouTube short, when asked about fiberglass the Stearns and Foster chatbot states mattress foams are free of fiberglass, but conveniently leaves out any mention of glass fiber in its flame barrier:
S&F Says Chat Representative was Wrong – April 2024
After Sealy threatened me with legal actions and DMCA take-down notices in March of 2024, I sent its lawyer the screenshots found in this article, along with instructions on how to reproduce the “glass fiber” results from the S&F livechat. You would think the lawyer would have actually read the article and done these things before sending me threats, but I guess not.
About two weeks later, I received this email from the Sealy’s lawyer.
“To reiterate, no STEARNS & FOSTER mattress includes any form of fiberglass including “core spun glass fiber.” Every STEARNS & FOSTER mattress sold is 100% fiberglass free.
To the extent that any information to the contrary was included on the web site or generated through “chat” on the web site, that information was included in error and has been corrected.
We ask that you address the erroneous information on the web site that you administer and correct it to reflect accurate information about our client’s products.”
-Sealy’s Lawyer
Sealy threatened me with legal actions, then actually had the audacity to request I update my article to reflect changes due to the incompitence of its livechat team, without even offering me an apology for being so crappy. Nice.
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Last Updated on May 4, 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.
