Nolah vs Purple Mattress

Why Nolah Is Better For You — The biggest difference between Purple and Nolah is just the feel of the mattress. Nolah is going to be more familiar in that it uses foam comfort layers. More on this, and other reasons to get Nolah, below.

Soft Foam Feel — Nolah feels like you’re sleeping on a 10″ pillow. It’s soft, plush, and extra pressure relieving. It actually feels like a mix between a regular poly foam and memory foam, meaning almost everyone will acknowledge that it’s comfortable, regardless of their stance on memory foam. For the record, according to a survey we ran with over 2,000 people, nearly 90% of them are either “in love with” or “just fine with” memory foam.

We rate Nolah, in terms of firmness, as between a medium-soft and medium, making it one of the best affordable mattresses for side sleepers. This isn’t the type of bed that you slowly sink into, but rather the type of bed that grants pressure relief almost immediately. That’s part of the reason why we say it has a blended feel between poly foam and memory foam. You get the pressure relief that would typically be associated with memory foam, and the responsive quality that you usually see with poly foam.

Prices — If you just look at the MSRP for each respective bed, Nolah and Purple are within $100 of each other. After you layer on a coupon code, however, Nolah tends to be more quite a bit more affordable than Purple. As an example, the original Purple and Nolah, for the queen size mattress, are both around $1,000-$1,100.

With a discount, though, Nolah is typically in the $800-900 range, and they run this promotion nearly year-round. You can look for Nolah’s current deal on their website.

Purple also runs promotions, but only during major holidays, such as Black Friday and July 4th. Most of the time, Purple bundles in sheets, a pillow, or some other accessory to sweeten the pot. If you get lucky, you’ll see a Purple discount of around $100, but you won’t see that nearly as frequently as you see a Nolah discount. You can check Purple’s website for their offers today, if there are any.

Why You Will Prefer A Purple Bed — The biggest separator for Purple is the feel of the mattress. If you take the ~150 other mattresses that we’ve reviewed, not a single one feels at all like Purple. That can be both good and bad.

It can be good in the sense that some people are searching for a new concept of mattress. It can be bad in the sense that Purple could provide to be too unique for certain consumers. In the sections below we will detail the major reasons why Purple should be your next bed.

Soft And Firm — Purple beds have a layer on top of Hyper-Elastic Polymer, a gel-like material that acts as the main comfort layer. There’s a chance that you’ll love it, or hate it. Part of what really sets Hyper-Elastic Polymer apart is that it can be almost soft and firm in the same sitting.

What we mean by that is that areas of your body that need pressure relief—namely your shoulders, hips, upper back and neck if you’re a side sleeper—will feel as though they’re getting ample pressure relief, whereas the other parts of your body should feel almost buoyant as they “float” on top of the bed. Here’s a look at Hyper-Elastic Polymer:

As the video above shows, a Purple mattress will have a squishy, bendable feel. Again, it can be too unique for certain people, but we really like it. Not only is it something new, but also it makes for a versatile mattress.

Hot Sleepers — Another differentiator is that the Purple mattresses (Original & New Hybrid) is that they offer increased airflow to hot sleepers. Not only that, but the Hyper-Elastic Polymer itself will not warm up and retain heat the way certain foams do. Take this along with the air pockets that sit in the Hyper-Elastic Polymer grid, and you have perhaps the only truly temperature neutral mattress. It’s really a neat concept.