Layla Essential Mattress Review

Layla is a popular bed-in-a-box company that is well-known for its memory foam and hybrid mattresses. The company also manufactures bed frames, pillows, and other bedding accessories. The Essential is Layla’s newest all-foam mattress. It features cooling memory foam, and highly dense polyfoam, making it the perfect balance between comfort and support. This bed also has excellent pressure relief and motion isolation performances.

What really makes the Essential mattress special, though, is its price tag. It features Layla’s high-end, luxurious materials, yet it is considered pretty affordable. So if you are looking for a budget-friendly bed that can give you a plush sleeping experience, we think the Layla Essential mattress could be a great option for you.

In this review, you will learn everything you need to know about the Layla Essential mattress.

In this review, you will learn about:

• Pros and cons of the Layla Essential mattress.
• The unboxing experience of the Layla Essential mattress.
• Firmness, feel, and comfort of the Layla Essential mattress.
• Construction and design of the Layla Essential mattress.
• Our performance test results.
• Warranty policies, company policies, and all the FAQs you might want to know.

Continue reading if you want to know if the Layla Essential mattress lives up to what it promises.

Layla Essential Mattress Overview

Pros

Excellent Value for Money - The Layla Essentials mattress is a high quality, durable bed that is made with superior CertiPUR-US memory foam. It also offers great cooling and pressure relief performances. Yet, it is still super affordable when compared to other similar mattresses in the market. This makes the Layla Essential mattress a great value for money, as it is a high-end bed with a budget-friendly price tag.

Great Cooling Performance - The Layla Essential mattress is mainly made with open-cell, cooling memory foam. This enhances its cooling performance, as it dissipates body heat, instead of trapping it, and regulates temperature. This leaves you with a cool and refreshing sleep surface, which would be ideal if you tend to sleep hot or live in a warm area.

Very Good Motion Isolation - The Layla Essential does an excellent job at isolating motion, so you definitely won’t be disrupted by your partner’s tossing and turning all night on the bed. Thanks to its all-foam construction, especially its dense polyfoam support core, the mattress effectively absorbs motion. This would allow you and your partner to enjoy a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.

Relieves Pressure Points - Being made with adaptive memory foam, the Layla Essential mattress conforms to your body contours and cradles your pressure points. This keeps you in a healthy sleep posture and good spinal alignment, which prevents pressure buildups. Mattresses with good pressure relief performance promote sleep health and overall well-being, and the Essential mattress from Layla definitely does this job.

Cons

Not Suitable for Heavy-Weight Sleepers - The Layla Essential mattress is an all-foam mattress, with a dense polyfoam support layer. It does a great job of supporting sleepers who weigh less than 300 lbs. However, heavier sleepers may get better support from a hybrid mattress that features a support core of coils. Therefore, we recommend the Layla Hybrid mattress for heavy-weight sleepers.

Who we Recommend the Layla Essential Mattress for

Back and Stomach Sleepers - The Layla Essential mattress is a medium-firm bed, making it ideal for back and stomach sleepers. It would equally distribute their weight on the surface, keeping them in a good alignment. This would relieve back and stomach sleepers’ pressure points, and provide them with a healthy sleeping experience.

Combination Sleepers - Combination sleepers often choose a bouncy mattress that would allow them to move freely on its surface. Thanks to being made with responsive memory foam, the Layla Essential mattress is super bouncy and buoyant. This makes it a good option for combination sleepers, as it would allow them to change sleeping positions easily, and not feel stuck in their bed.

Hot Sleepers - The Layla Essential mattress is designed to sleep cool all night, thanks to having cooling, open-cell memory foam in its construction. This makes it a breathable bed that dissipates the heat, which offers you a dry and refreshing sleep surface to enjoy all night.

Budget Shoppers - Despite being made with premium and durable materials, the Layla Essentials is still affordable. So, if you want a sleek-looking bed that can offer you a plush sleeping experience, but can’t afford a luxurious bed, then the Layla Essential mattress would make a great option for you.

Unboxing the Layla Essential Mattress

The Unboxing experience of the Layla Essential mattress was seamless and hassle-free. It arrived to us compressed in a box, of course, since it is a bed-in-a-box mattress. The box was light and easy to carry, as memory foam is a light material, so you shouldn’t face a problem carrying it to your desired room. To unbox it, you simply take it out of the box, place it on your bed, and carefully cut the plastic wrap.

When we unboxed the Layla Essential mattress, we noticed that it took a couple of hours to fully expand into its full size. We also noticed that it expanded all the way to its very edges. Such good edge expansion makes your bed looks better and indicates that it has good edge support.

Most bed-in-a-box mattresses release an overpowering, irritating odor once they are unboxed, known as off-gassing. Yet, the Layla Essential bed hardly produced any potent smell. This shows that it is a safe bed that won’t emit any harsh chemicals and toxins into your bedroom.

Overall, we found the unboxing experience of the Layla Essential bed to be fun and smooth, which is definitely a plus for Layla.

Firmness, Feel and Comfort For the Layla Essential Mattress

The Layla Essential Mattress Firmness

The firmness of any mattress depends on your body weight and preferred sleeping position, making it a subjective matter. Yet, it is important to opt for a bed that meets your specific needs. A mattress that is too firm or too soft for you may negatively impact your sleep health and overall well-being.

The Layla Essential mattress scored a 6/10 on our firmness scale, with 1 being the softest, and 10 being the firmest. This makes it a medium-firm bed, which usually works well for most sleepers of all shapes and sizes.

Back and stomach sleepers would get the optimum support from this bed and have a healthy sleep posture and spinal alignment. Similarly, stomach sleepers would benefit from the medium-firm feel of the Layla Essential mattress, as it would be soft enough to cradle their shoulders and hips, without sinking too much.

Yet, Heavy-weight sleepers, especially those who sleep on their side, would feel comfortable on a hybrid mattress. Therefore, the Layla Hybrid mattress would provide them with better support.

The Layla Essential Mattress Feel

When we first tried sleeping on the Layla Essential bed, we found it pillowy and soft to the touch. It has a plush, stretchy cover with hexagon-shaped stitches, which adds to the bed’s breathability and cooling properties. The memory foam also gives the Essential mattress a buoyant and adaptive feel that would hug your body and make you feel like you are sleeping on a cloud.

Overall, we found that the Layla Essential mattress has one of the softest, most welcoming sleep surfaces we have experienced.

The Layla Essential Mattress Comfort

Similar to firmness, how comfortable you would feel on any bed depends on your body weight and preferred sleeping position. The Layla Essential is a medium-firm mattress, making it comfortable for most sleepers, especially those weighing less than 250 lbs.

Light-weight and average-weight back and stomach sleepers would find this bed very comfortable. Its medium-firm feel would distribute their body weight evenly on the bed, giving them both comfort and support. Similarly, stomach sleepers who weigh less than 250 lbs should find this bed comfortable, as it would cushion their pressure points and keep them in a perfect sleep posture.

Heavy-weight sleepers, especially those who prefer to sleep on their side, would find this mattress too soft for their liking. So, Layla’s Hybrid mattress would be a better option for them.

Constructions, Materials, and Design

Materials and Design

The Layla Essential mattress is made with superior materials that Layla features in its more expensive mattresses, making it an affordable, top-end bed. It has a cover of Polyester blend with hexagon-shaped stitches. This cover gives the mattress more breathability and adds to its good cooling performance.

The Layla Essential is an all-foam medium-firm bed. Its comfort layer consists of breathable open-cell memory foam. It also has a support core of dense polyfoam, that allows it to be supportive and durable.

Layers

Here is what is inside the Layla Essential Mattress

1. Cover - A cover of Polyester blend that has hexagon stitches. It gives the mattress a cool, soft feel. The cover is also provided with a zipper to easily remove and wash it.
2. Comfort Layer - The comfort layer of the Essential mattress consists of a 2” open-cell memory foam. This layer conforms to your body and cradles your pressure points. It also adds to the mattress’ cooling performance, as it allows for steady airflow through the mattress.
3. Support Core - The 7” support core of the mattress is made with dense Polyfoam that allows your bed to be supportive and long-lasting. Polyfoam also adds to the breathability of the bed, which enhances its cooling performance.

Performance of the Layla Essential Mattress

Cooling

If you tend to sleep hot, or simply don’t like the feeling of a hot mattress at night, then getting a mattress with good cooling performance is essential for you. We ran our standard tests to evaluate Layla’s Essential mattress’ cooling performance.

The first test consists of sleeping on each side for a 20-minute nap. When we did this test, we found that the mattress remained cool while sleeping on each side. The second test we did was to try sleeping on the mattress for a full night. We found that the mattress gave us the same result, as it did an excellent job absorbing and dissipating the heat.

This didn’t come as a surprise to us, as the Essential mattress features cooling and breathable materials, like open-cell memory foam. Such materials help the mattress to stay cool and dry all night, offering a comfortable sleep for hot sleepers.

We rated the Layla Essential mattress’ cooling performance a well-deserved 4.7/5.

Responsiveness

Responsiveness refers to how bouncy and buoyant your bed is. Therefore, responsiveness is very important, as it means that your mattress is easy to move and changes sleeping positions on. To evaluate the Layla Essentials mattress’ responsiveness, we did our standard test.

Our tests consist of dropping a 20 lbs ball onto the mattress surface, then removing it. This helps us examine how fast the mattress recovers into its original form, after being subjected to pressure. When we did this test, we found that the mattress regained its original form in 0.8 seconds, making it a very buoyant and responsive bed.

The Layla Essential is an all-foam bed, featuring a comfortable layer of memory foam. This gives it a bouncy feel that would allow you to move on it easily. Therefore, this bed is ideal for combination sleepers, as they would change sleeping positions seamlessly, without feeling trapped in their bed.

We rated the Layla Essential mattress’ responsiveness a 4.5/5.

Motion Isolation

Motion isolation is very important if you share the bed with a partner. It refers to the ability of the mattress to absorb motion, allowing you not to feel your partner’s tossing and turning on the bed. To assess the Layla Essential mattress’ motion isolation performance, we ran a couple of tests.

The first test consists of placing a glass full of water on one side of the bed and dropping a heavy ball on the other side. This test helps us observe how much motion is propagated from one side of the bed to the other. When we did this test, we found that the water inside the glass was hardly affected by the ball drop.

Another test that we did involved rolling on one side of the bed, and having our partner report the motion felt on the other side. Similarly, our partner felt very little motion on the other side of the bed. Being an all-foam bed, the Layla Essential mattress does an excellent job in absorbing motion. This makes motion isolation one of the Essential mattress’ strong points.

We rated the Layla Essential mattress’ motion isolation performance a solid 4.8/5.

Edge Support

Mattresses with strong and supportive edges allow you to use the entire sleep surface of the bed, making it feel bigger. It also allows you to sit and sleep near the edges of your mattress, and not be forced to sleep near the center, which prevents premature sagging. We tested the edge support of the Layla Essential mattress by running two of our standard tests.

The first test we did consisted of applying pressure to the edges of the mattress and examining how much it skins. This test indicates if the mattress has strong edges that make you feel supported while sleeping. When we did this test, we found that the edges of the mattress sank a little. However, you shouldn’t feel worried about rolling out of bed.

The second test we did involved sitting on the mattress’ edges and seeing how well it holds body weight. The result of the test was similar, as the mattress did a decent job holding up the weight.

For an all-foam bed, the Layla Essential mattress has good edge support. Yet, it is not as good as hybrid mattresses that have coils near their perimeter. If you want a mattress that offers better edge support, then we strongly recommend the Layla Hybrid mattress.

Therefore, we rate the Layla Essential mattress’ edge support a 4.3/5.

Noise

We did our noise test to see if the Layla Essential mattress causes any noises or squeaks. Our standard noise test consists of dropping a heavy ball onto the surface of the mattress, and observing how much noise it causes through highly sensitive mics.

When we performed our noise test, we found the Layla Essential mattress within the “silent” mattresses category. It doesn’t cause any noises or squeaks, due to the fact that it is an all-foam bed that has no coils in its layers.

Given our results, we rated the Layla Essential mattress’ noise a 5/5.

Sex

We determine if a mattress is a good option for sex based on a number of elements: responsiveness, cooling, and edge support. Given the results of our tests so far, the Layla Essential mattress would be a great option for sex.

It is made with memory foam, which gives it a bouncy feel that allows you to move freely on it. It also has an excellent cooling performance due to the breathable materials that it features. Moreover, the bed also provides decent edge support that would allow you to utilize the entire sleep surface.

We rated the Layla Essential mattress’ sex performance a solid 4.5/5.

Pressure Relief

When we sleep, the pressure of our bodies concentrates on certain body parts, which are called pressure points. So, while looking for a new mattress, it is important to consider one that relieves those pressure points.

We tested the Layla Essential mattress’ pressure relief by taking a 20-minute nap on the mattress and reporting the pressure caused to different body parts. The pressure map below shows how the mattress responds to each sleeping position.

For back sleepers, the Layla Essential mattress’ medium-firm feel would be a perfect mix of comfort and support. It would hug back sleeper’s shoulders, and fill their lumbar area, leaving them in a perfect sleep posture. This would ease back sleepers’ pressure points and give them a healthy sleeping experience.

The Layla Essentials would also be a good choice for side sleepers. It would cushion their shoulders and hips, where pressure tends to build up. This keeps them in good alignment and prevents shoulder and hip problems.

Similarly, stomach sleepers would find themself in a perfect alignment, while sleeping on the Layla Essential mattress. It would support their hips, preventing them from sinking too much. This would protect back sleepers from tension buildup in their lower backs.

Overall, this bed provides excellent pressure relief, especially for light-weight and average-weight sleepers. Heavy-weight sleepers, however, would be more comfortable on a hybrid mattress, like the Layla Hybrid bed.

We rated the Layla Essential mattress’ pressure relief performance a 4.5/5.

Layla Warranty and Company Policies

Warranty

The Layla Essential mattress comes with a 10-year warranty.

Trial

The Layla Essential mattress comes with a generous 120-night sleep trial, which is a good amount of time to test out your new mattress. It is noteworthy that it takes about a month to get used to your new mattress, so make sure to give yourself enough time.

Returns

If you feel that the Layla Essential mattress is not a good option for you, you can return it within the 120-night trial period, and get a 100% refund. Yet, we recommend you try your Essential mattress for at least a month, before deciding to return it.

Shipping

The Layla mattresses are made to order and take about 1–5 days to be made after you place your order, and 1-2 days to arrive at your doorstep. Layla also offers free shipping to your doorstep across the United States through FedEx.

Pricing

The table below shows the different pricing and size options for the Layla Essential Mattress. Also, note that the prices below are before any discounts.

The Layla Essential mattress is a high-quality bed that features materials that Layla includes in its expensive, luxurious mattresses. It provides great cooling, pressure relief, and motion isolation performances. This bed also suits most sleepers, regardless of their sleeping positions.

Yet, it is still considered an affordable mattress, especially when compared to other mattresses on the market. This makes the Layla Essential mattress a great value for its price.

Therefore, we rated the Layla Essential mattress’ value a solid 5/5.

Policies Overview

FAQs about Layla Essential Mattress

Who does Layla’s Essential mattress suit the most?

Being an all-foam medium-firm bed, the Layla Essential mattress suits most sleepers who weigh less than 250 pounds. Yet, heavy-weight sleepers sleep more comfortably on a hybrid bed, so we recommend those folks the Layla Hybrid mattress.

Can I wash the Layla Essential mattress’ cover?

Yes, the Essential mattress is provided with a zipper, so you can easily wash it. Layla recommends dry cleaning to maintain the soft feel of the cover. However, if you will wash it at home, set your washer on a gentle cycle and low heat dryer.

When can I start using my Essential mattress after unboxing it?

Usually, bed-in-a-box mattresses take 24 hours to fully expand into their full size. However, the Essential mattress took less than that. So, you can use it on the same day, but wait for it to fully expand first.