Mattresses
The key factors for a mattress are comfort and support.
The correct support will depend partly on your weight, profile and sleeping position. To keep your spine properly aligned, the mattress should neither be too soft nor too hard. Too soft and it will not support your hips and spine; too hard and it will cause pressure on your hips and shoulders. A general rule is that the greater your weight, the firmer the mattress that is needed to support you. We'd advise you to avoid a very firm mattress if you sleep on your side and have wide hips.
How to Choose a Mattress
Ideally you'd sleep on a new mattress for a week first, but that's not usually possible. If you ask us for advise we'll ask you about your height and weight and what you think of your current mattress. And any other mattress you've slept on and liked. In the UK most people sleep on a sprung mattress. In the rest of Europe it's different, more people sleep on foam or latex mattresses - the type of mattress that we sell.
We prefer them because they're simpler: simpler in construction and simpler to understand. We don't sell sprung mattresses because many of the 'selling points' seems to serve to confuse the issue. 'How many springs should it have?' 'It contains silk fibres - does that really make it more comfortable?' The sprung mattress business is very competitive. When we researched it we couldn't really make sense of it and felt we couldn't pass on the selling points in an honest way.
Which is not to decry sprung mattresses - there are some very comfortable and well made ones. We just prefer the look and common sense behind the foam and latex mattresses that we sell.