Variety at Low Prices
The Company
Signature Sleep, a division of Dorel Industries, Inc. – also known as Dorel Home Products (DHP) – is one of several mattress manufacturers based in Canada. A few of the others are Marshall Mattress, Novosbed, and Zedbed. It and Zedbed are located in Quebec, but their websites are available in English. Marshall and Zedbed make their mattresses in Canada, Novosbed makes theirs in the U.S., but most of Signature Sleep’s mattresses are made in China.
Signature Sleep has 28 models in four mattress collections, four in Sofa Sleepers and two Folding Guest Beds (with mattresses), a topper, foundations, and pillows. The mattresses are sold online, but not on the Signature Sleep website. On the page for each mattress model are links to retailers where it is available, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Overstock, Toys R Us, Hayneedle and others.
Signature Sleep’s principal competitor is Zinus. Like Signature Sleep, Zinus makes most of its mattresses in China – actually all but one.
Mattress Collections
Currently, there are four mattress collections in the Signature Sleep lineup: Black Collection, Gold Collection, Signature Collection, and Youth Mattresses. In May 2014, the collections were Memory Foam Mattress, Coil Mattress, Hybrid Mattress, and Luxe Mattress. This is not unusual. Most mattress companies have realigned their models and collections, including the original memory foam mattress company Tempur-Pedic.
Besides regular mattresses, Signature Sleep also lists Folding Guest Beds, Foundations, their Pillow Collection, Sofa Sleepers, and DHP Furniture.
Several Signature Sleep mattress models have been carried for a number of years. Listings on Amazon tell when each model became available. Some have been around since 2011 or earlier. But there are a few models which have been discontinued.
All of the models in the Memory Foam Mattress and Coil Mattress collections and one from the Luxe Mattress Collection carried over into the current Signature Collection, with some expansion of the first two groups. Memoir 10 has been added to the Memoir 6, Memoir 8, and Memoir 12 memory foam mattresses. Contour 10 joins the Contour 8 from the coil mattresses, and Essential 6 is now available in Black or White sub-models. Also carried over are Signature 13 (Coil) and Sunrise 10 Inch 5-Zone Conforma Coil (Luxe). The RenewFoam mattress models from the Hybrid Mattress Collection are represented now in Accessories by the RenewFoam Topper.
Signature Sleep bed mattresses range from 5” for youth mattresses to 14” in height for Justice in the Black Collection. Mattresses which come with their sleeper sofas and folding guest beds are thinner: 3” on the sofas, 4″ and 4.5” on the guest beds.
Major Features
Coils
Fifteen of the current Signature Sleep bed mattress models are innerspring mattresses. In all but four of the models, these are described as individually encased (pocket) coils. This coil type performs better with the compression and rolling that is done to boxed beds (all Signature Sleep mattresses are shipped this way).
The pocket coils in Select, Basic and Essential are 5” high and 13.5-gauge, which is notably firmer than the 15-ga. pocket coils used in the others. The 15-ga. coils are 7” high in the Contour, Liberty, and Inspiration models, 10” in the Signature and Justice, and 10½” in the Triumph mattresses. The difference in gauge is offset by the difference in coil count. The 15-ga. coils (about 480 in Twin) have a higher coil count than the 13.5-ga. coils (216-260 in Twin), meaning less body weight per coil. The Sunrise 10 Inch 5-Zone Conforma Coil Mattress is an exception with no identification of coil gauge or height, indicating that these measurements define the zones – but it does have a higher coil count.
Most Signature Sleep coil mattresses are reversible. With equal padding on both sides of the coils, they can be flipped over. This evens out the wear, giving the padding a chance to recover and increasing the life of the mattress.
Covers
The default cover fabric for Signature Sleep mattresses is a knit jacquard. A decorative pattern is knit in, similar to how the pattern in brocade is woven in. This gives the surface a 3-D texture which is more breathable. Most of the covers are made of polyester. The Signature 13 has a bamboo rayon cover.
Foams
Every Signature Sleep mattress has at least some foam in it. For instance, a 6” high coil mattress has an inch of foam in the top. There are basically four kinds of foam used: firm polyurethane support foam, soft polyurethane cushioning foam, memory foam, and gel memory foam. All of these foams are certified by CertiPUR-US as free from several toxic substances as well as volatile organic compounds.
The overall quality of the foams has been brought into question by several reviewers. This is because it is made in China where quality management is not as good as it is in North America and Western Europe.
Support Foam
Those Signature Sleep mattresses without coils have support cores of high density polyurethane foam (polyfoam). This is the standard for most all-foam mattresses (some latex mattresses have latex support cores). Most polyfoam support cores in the market are 1.8 to 2.0 lbs/ft3, but most of Signature Sleep’s support foam is 1.5 lbs/ft3, making these mattresses less suitable for heavier persons.
Cushioning Foam
Various weights of polyurethane cushioning foam are common in mattresses. Most innerspring mattresses produced have some of it in the quilting or in a comfort layer. Signature Sleep mattresses are no exception. All of their mattresses have some foam, and 15 of them have no memory foam, leaving most of them with polyfoam for padding. This takes several forms, from extra soft quilting foam to dense convoluted foam, as in the Sunrise.
Memory Foam
Thirteen of Signature Sleep’s mattresses have memory foam, the result of NASA’s development of cushioning material to use in launch seats for astronauts. The company gives no clue in its descriptions as to whether the foam is open-cell or ventilated. This is an important consideration, since memory foam tends to accumulate heat, so open-cell structure and ventilation are used to promote air flow to dissipate the heat.
Signature Sleep memory foam, for the most part, is 2 to 2.5 lbs/ft3, making it lighter than several online only mattress models, and much lighter than the now standard 4-lb. memory foam in top layers of retail store mattresses. Lighter memory foam is less heat sensitive, making it cooler than the original 5-lb. foam.
This also makes it more responsive (less memory), with quicker recovery to let a sleeper move more easily. The downside of this is that memory foam lighter than 3-lbs. is less durable, having a shorter usable lifetime. This leads to earlier problems with indentation and sagging.
Gel Memory Foam
Only two current mattresses by Signature Sleep have gel, the Aura and the Justice. The company’s descriptions of these two models state that the gel allows greater airflow. Logically, this would have to mean either that the gel memory foam is perforated, or that it helps cells to be more open. Other manufacturers claim that the gel itself cools by absorbing heat. However, as Dr. Swartzburg points out, there is a limit to cooling by absorption, with better results through enhanced airflow, especially when there is an overall design, such as the Airflow Transfer System, which is demonstrated in this video.
Shipping
Each Signature Sleep mattress is compressed, vacuum sealed, rolled and inserted into a box for shipment by UPS or FedEx (if bought at Home Depot, it is shipped to the store where it can be picked up or shipped locally).
Warranty
The Signature Sleep warranty is for only one year.
Evaluation
Sleep Like The Dead rates Signature Sleep lower than Zinus. Primarily it is for less than average durability, which we see as a result of lighter than normal foams, but another reason is the 1-year warranty. Signature Sleep scores better than Zinus, its most direct competitor, in some owner satisfaction categories, such as being suitable for side sleepers. They both score mediocre in support for large persons, again because of lighter foam.
On the good side, Signature Sleep has a few things going for it. For one thing, they have very low prices. Another point is their variety of models and features. A third advantage is that they still make reversible mattresses, which have vanished in many product lines. A possible advantage is the large number of retailers through which Signature Sleep mattresses can be ordered, with some (like Home Depot) having them shipped to the stores for pickup – you don’t have to stay home to receive the delivery.
On the down side is the extremely short warranty. But this is largely offset by the low prices.
