<p>Just a little reminder regarding the memory foam toppers many of us are getting for the dorms this year. </p>
<p>They smell disgusting when you first open them up!</p>
<p>They need to be laid out for the smell to dissipate and for them to expand to the correct size. It takes a few days to do this at least. If you have the room for doing this at home, and then traveling with the expanded pad, do it. In the little dorm room the smell could be a problem and there won’t be anywhere to lay it out before it is used.</p>
<p>I am also reminded this time of year that Memory Foam can be warm! I have a memory foam topper (parent at home) and with our weather in the triple digits it has been too toasty.</p>
<p>Good advice…am thinking of having it sent here, airing it out, and then putting it in one of those vacuum bags to make it small again for a plane ride…do you think that will work?</p>
<p>I’ve actually used those vacuum bags and it worked great. The air was sucked right out of the memory foam. Be aware, it takes a little while for the air to bring it back to its original shape. (For me it was about 40 min.)</p>
<p>I know folks love memory foam…and I have that kind of bed here at my home. For college, however, we bought an inexpensive foam topper…and then threw it away at the end of each year. To be honest, it was disgusting. Sorry to say that many college kids do not keep their rooms as “tidy” as we do at our homes. And another point about the memory foam pads…you are not supposed to put a mattress pad ON TOP of them…as it prevents the heat of your body from making the foam conform to you. </p>
<p>Our kids did this…plain foam topper (readily available at Target, BBB, Walmart), and a GOOD thicker mattress pad. This worked for them. We tossed the foam thing at the end of the school year…and washed the mattress pad with BLEACH when it was brought home.</p>
<p>Sadly, I think the odor from a new memory foam topper is well beyond the powers of Shower to Shower. I know it took a good 4 or 5 days for the smell to go away.</p>
<p>capenn15, I have never used those vacuum bags, but if they work that would be a great idea. If you put it on the bed and it takes a little while to come back to size, that isn’t really an issue. It is the smell you have to worry about.</p>
<p>The heat from foam is a real issue here in HI, as well as most warm areas. Even if the smell doesn’t get you, the heat can make sleep pretty challenging. We have a pillowtop bed I got from Costco & we had to put a beachtowel and a cotton comforter folded in half for the bed to be comfortable enough to be slept on!</p>
<p>It just occurred to me that I have no idea what happened to my s’s memory foam for the dorm twin xlong bed when he moved off campus and bought a fullsize bed… hmmmm</p>
<p>I just pulled the memory foam topper off my bed last night because even though we’re running the a/c it just holds too much body heat in the summer and I get too hot—and it has a cover that’s supposed to keep it cool, and I put an extra thick mattress pad over it. I wouldn’t spend a lot on a topper for the dorm because you’ll probably have to pitch it. Of course, my son didn’t change his sheets. Ever. I stripped the bed when I picked him up at Christmas, so the bedding got washed one time in nine months. Gross. So gross.</p>
<p>Once the memory foam toppers are released from their packaging, they are very hard to travel with. Because they grow when out of the plastic bag, I find they are bulky. The twin size can roll after you air it out, but the thinner ones tend to rip sometimes. We left my daughter’s opened when we left school and because we had a big SUV, it survived.</p>
<p>I vaguely remembered opening my first daughter’s foam topper a few days before we left home and allowing it to air out. Seeing this thread reminded me that I needed to do the same for D2’s. After ripping it out of the packaging and unrolling it, I realized, this mattress smells wonderful. A little too late, I opened the instructions and read that the mattress topper had been treated with a green tea extract to make it smell good. So darn, now the thing has expanded to its regular size, and I didn’t have to open it after all. One day I will learn to read instructions first.</p>
<p>I am glad my D insists on bringing her featherbed topper to college. I actually tried to talk her out of it, figuring it’s easier buying the mattress foam over there. The featherbed topper is heavy but it can be squeezed back into its original zippered plastic bag, about the size of the queen comforter. I bought it years ago at Costco, don’t know if they still have it around. This is similar to what hotels like Marriott have on their beds.</p>