Hi Dave -- Thanks for your question, and your very kind words. I'm afraid we haven't done an in-depth review of any of the Essentia products yet, so I can't provide much specificity on them unfortunately. I have laid on their mattresses before though. It was several years ago, but I do remember really liking the way they felt, so I can certainly understand why you've "been in love with them." It's also not surprising to me that our quiz recommended the Zenhaven for you, because that mattress does feel similar to how I remember at least a few of the Essentia models feeling.

In terms of your concerns about price, this gets into a deeper assessment of value, which I'm not really able to do without having done a thorough review of the product. That said, part of any assessment of value is "what's in it." On this front, I do feel that Essentia lost some credibility in my mind with their FTC troubles. As part of any review of their products, I'd want to give them a chance to regain this credibility by making sure I have a detailed understanding of not only what the FTC objected to with their advertising claims but also what the company's side of the story was, and what they've done since then to be more clear and transparent about their products.

The reason this is important to me is not only because of the natural / non-natural thing (which does affect the value equation, by the way, since natural products generally do cost more). Moreso, it's because of my need to feel trust in a company in general. This is particularly important to me as someone that is not only choosing products for myself, but as someone who is representing GoodBed in helping other consumers make the best choice possible. We can't lab-test every claim that a company makes about how natural or dense their foams are, what fibers are woven into their cover, what types of glues they use, etc. In most cases, we can only make sure that we ask all the pertinent questions and then rely on the information they provide. So, it's important to me that I feel comfortable that the information a company is providing us is accurate. And even beyond that, having comfort with a company's overall integrity is also important to giving me confidence that they will take excellent care of our users and stand behind their products if/when something goes wrong.

I realize some of that answer was a bit of an aside from your question about the product itself, but I felt that it was related to the aspect of your question that concerned price. I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful in this case.