Layla Mattress Review | Reasons to Buy/NOT Buy

Let’s be honest: most online beds are pretty similar. This factor can make your experience of shopping for a new bed tricky. For us, it can also make testing new mattresses boring. That’s why it’s always so refreshing when we come across a bed like the original Layla mattress.

While most beds have only one main sleeping surface, this is a double-sided mattress. If you get tired of sleeping on one side, you can simply flip it over and try out the other. Each side has a different firmness to accommodate a wide variety of sleeper types, and since it’s a foam bed, it’s easy to move around. In this review, I’ll explain why I personally love this bed and who exactly it’s best for.

First impressions of the Layla mattress

Once you order the Layla mattress online, it’ll eventually arrive at your doorstep inside a tall, cardboard box. It looks like it would hold something like an office water cooler or even a set of golf clubs, but trust me, it is indeed your new bed. To set it up, all you do is drag it inside, dump out the contents, rip off the plastic and watch the bed inflate on your foundation.

We found that our Layla mattress needed some more time after the unboxing to expand, so we gave it a full night to sit out on our bed frame to get to its true form. That said, you can totally sleep on it right out of the box — but it might look and feel a little strange at first.

When it came time to test the mattress, I immediately noticed the sink-in comfort of the memory foam on both sides. As for those sides, one was clearly firmer than the other, but both were plenty accommodating for my sleep preferences. Being an all-foam bed, I found it best suited for average to petite-sized builds. Most importantly, it felt incredibly comfortable the moment I lay down.

Video: Layla mattress review

Watch me review the Layla mattress in this video.

Layla mattress firmness and feel

What does the Layla mattress feel like?

The Layla mattress has a fluffy, airy memory foam feel. Pressing into either side reveals a response time slower than a neutral foam option but faster than a traditional Tempur-Pedic mattress. This provides sleepers with a body-conforming feel that doesn’t leave you feeling stuck in the mattress.

This type of mattress feel is great to have if you enjoy a little bit of memory foam in your bed. It’s ideal for combination sleepers like me, offering a slight sink-in sensation that quickly adapts to your movements. Dense memory foam beds can sometimes make it harder to move around due to their viscous top layers. Fortunately, this mattress provides a memory foam feel that accommodates a wide range of preferences.

How firm is the Layla mattress?

Since this is a flippable, all-foam mattress, there’s a different firmness level on either side of it to try out. The “soft side” provides the most amount of pressure relief for strict side sleepers as it’s around a proper medium-soft on our scale. If you flip the bed over to the “firm side,” it’s a tinge firmer than a medium, making it the more supportive side for back, stomach and combination sleepers. 

Having two firmnesses in one bed makes the Layla mattress a super versatile option. If you happen not to like one side, you can just flip the bed over and try out the other. However, if you’re looking for a much firmer style of hybrid mattress, the Layla mattress might not be the best choice. Luckily, the brand makes the Layla Hybrid, which has coils to provide more support for bigger people.

Out of 10, our Mattress Smasher 9000 gave the soft side of the Layla Hybrid a score of 3.5 and the firm side an 8.6. Objectively, our specialized machine measured the firm side as much firmer than we expected — sometimes, it takes a giant bed robot to give you a fresh perspective.

Layla mattress construction

Since the Layla mattress is a double-sided bed, its construction differs from your average all-foam mattress. It’s 10.5’’ thick and composed of the following materials:

1. In the middle of the bed, you’ve got a layer of support foam, which provides the main support system for the mattress.
2. Then, towards the soft side, you’ve got a responsive transition layer to act as a buffer between the support and comfort layers of the bed.
3. Sandwiching everything on either side, you’ve got a copper-gel memory foam that gives the mattress its overall feel. These layers differ slightly in thickness to give each side a different firmness.
4. Wrapping the bed is an intriguing cover with a honeycomb-style pattern. Its color is lighter on the softer side while the firm side has darker tones.

Layla mattress performance

Motion isolation

This bed deadens a noticeable amount of cross-mattress movement. The copper-gel memory foam absorbs lots of motion and doesn’t really allow much to transfer from side to side. This is especially true for the soft side of the mattress, which has a thicker layer of this foam. If getting a bed with good motion isolation is a top priority for you, you shouldn’t have any concerns with this mattress.

Edge-to-edge support

For an all-foam mattress, we’d say the Layla mattress presents sleepers with pretty good edge support. The “Firm Side” of the bed will likely provide a bit more support along the edges than the “Soft Side” due to its firmer profile. Hybrid beds that have support coils or even reinforced coils along the perimeter usually perform the best in this category. Still, based on our tests, we didn’t observe any apparent roll-off sensation with this bed at all. If you or your partner like to really hug the edges of your bed at night, you should feel plenty of support in this regard on the Layla mattress.   

Temperature

Even though the cover on the Layla mattress is designed to be breathable and the copper-infused memory foam on either side is meant to help with cooling, we’d classify the Layla mattress as temperature-neutral. We don’t expect this mattress to actively cool you down at night, but it won’t overheat either. While that might sound like a downside, most online mattresses fall within this temperature-neutral range. However, if you’re looking for an active-cooling mattress, you can always check out our best cooling mattress for hot sleepers list. 

Durability

Since this is an all-foam bed with a flippable design, the Layla mattress should be durable enough to last most body types for many years to come. More specifically, it’s best suited for supporting smaller or average-sized individuals over time. If you’re a heavier person like me, you may want to invest in a hybrid mattress with support coils instead of a foam option. If you or your partner are on the much heavier side, you may benefit more from sleeping on an ultra-durable hybrid mattress. In that case, feel free to check out our Best Beds for Heavy People list.

Who is the Layla mattress best for?

While this is a super versatile mattress meant to accommodate a wide variety of sleeping preferences, it’s still best for select groups of sleepers. Here’s who we think will love this bed the most.

Sleeping position

Strict side sleepers will likely benefit the most from sleeping on this bed’s soft side. It provides an ample amount of sink-in pressure relief for the areas of your body that really dig into a mattress, like shoulders and hips. Along with having a soft profile, the memory foam on top will help cradle side sleepers more as they rest.

Combination sleepers who like to rotate between different sleeping positions will likely prefer the firm side. The thinner memory foam layer is responsive enough to adapt to movements quickly while providing a nice balance of support and comfort. But if you’re a diehard back or stomach sleeper looking for a much firmer mattress, this is not the best choice for you. In that case, I’d look up the Essential by Layla. It’s around a proper medium-firm, but it’s not a flippable mattress like the others.

Body type

As mentioned, the construction of this bed makes it best at supporting medium- to petite-sized builds. If you’re a heavier person, you could get more of a support advantage with the Layla Hybrid, but you could also get by on this mattress just fine.

Price-wise, I’d say the Layla mattress is offering at a really nice value, especially considering that you’re essentially getting two beds in one here. Plus, Layla is one of those brands that usually runs discounts on its beds year-round. After you apply one to the queen size, you can expect to pay right around $950 — not bad for a flippable mattress.   

Trial, shipping and warranty

Layla backs its two main beds with a generous policy set. Its beds ship to you in a box for free, and once it’s in your possession, you get a 120-night trial period to try it at home risk free. If you happen not to like it within that time frame, you can return it for free. On the other hand, if you decide to keep it, you’re backed by a lifetime warranty. That’s above and beyond the usual standard for an online mattress warranty.

How does the Layla mattress compare to other mattresses? 

Layla Mattress vs. Layla Hybrid

There are some noticeable differences between the two flippable beds from Layla. The flagship Layla bed is more affordable than the Layla Hybrid, which is designed to be more premium. Since the Layla Hybrid has support coils, it’s the better option for heavier people, while the all-foam design of the Layla mattress is most suitable for supporting medium- to petite-sized individuals. The firm side of the flagship Layla mattress is also a bit firmer than that of the Layla Hybrid’s. This makes the Layla mattress slightly more accommodating for primary back and stomach sleepers. 

Layla vs. Nectar

The flagship Nectar and Layla beds share some similarities but are quite different overall. Both are memory foam mattresses with a responsive memory foam feel, but their biggest difference lies in their construction. While the Layla mattress is double-sided, the Nectar Classic Memory Foam only has one main sleeping surface. It’s also much firmer than the Layla mattress and slightly more affordable after a discount. And when it comes to policies, it’s hard to beat the ones offered by Nectar these days.

The final verdict

There’s a good reason this bed makes so many of our best lists. It’s a quality double-sided mattress with an airy memory foam feel that’s backed by great policies. If you don’t have much money to spend, but are still looking for something nice, it’s definitely worth consideration.

You might like the Layla if:

• You want a flippable, all-foam mattress
• You want a responsive memory foam feel
• You want two firmness levels in one bed
• You’ve got a budget under $1,000

You might not like the Layla mattress if:

• You’re looking for a hybrid mattress
• You prefer the feel of a dense memory foam mattress
• You’re searching for a much firmer mattress
• You want to spend up on something more premium