It’s been a year (minus a few weeks) since I purchased my Tuft & Needle queen mattress and have been sleeping on it nearly every day since. All in all, it was a successful purchase and my intense research on the best bed-in-a-box mattress for me, before I purchased it, paid off. I’d buy another Tuft & Needle mattress in a heartbeat.
A lot of people have generously given their review of Tuft & Needle’s mattress, but only after lying on it for a night or a week at most. Below is my full review for key areas of Tuft & Needle’s mattress after sleeping on it for an entire year.
How Did I Sleep This Past Year?
Just great, really. Look, a mattress can only do so much good. It’s not going to sweep the kitchen floor or change the oil on the Jeep, but a good one can definitely make going to bed rather enjoyable.
I can’t recall how many times my immediate thought when waking up during the night to change my position was, “Man, this mattress is so comfortable”. Yes, it’s normal to wake up in the middle of the night to change your position. No one is sleeping in the same position all night long.
Normally, I sleep on the side between my side and my stomach -- whatever side that’s called -- but with my new Tuft & Needle mattress, I’ve tried my back and stomach on occasion and was as content as could be. Honestly, I’d never slept on my back, nor ever thought I would feel the need to.
It’s important to note that I don’t inherently have any back pain or problems, which is a common association made by the mattress industry. Of course, I’m only 30 years old, but I also lift heavy (and light) objects with a lovely thoracic extension to avoid back problems.
But as for aches, pains, and soreness, when there was the occasional day where I pushed and beat up my body just a little too much, the Tuft & Needle mattress was a godsend. When you have said body, I can’t describe the relief and just how good it felt to lay on this mattress.
How Did It Hold Up?
My previous mattress was a roughly 15 year old Sealy's Posturepedic mattress with a heavenly foam topper. It was extremely comfortable and the only complaint I had was the sagging middle that got worse over the years, but come on -- it was a 15 year old mattress.
The sagging middle aside, the only position that worked on this spring mattress was sleeping on the side between my side and my stomach, and sleeping in the middle of the mattress that was slowly morphing into a hammock. Granted, I think poor middle frame support lead to the middle sagging on the Sealy’s.
While the Tuft & Needle mattress is just a year old, its integrity is as strong and solid as the day I got it. There’s no middle sagging, which means I can sleep on any side and in any position with total comfort.
My girlfriend sleeps with me on the weekends, and even with her weight contribution on the occasion, the surface of the Tuft & Needle mattress remains level. Having her next to me doesn’t cause any shifts in the mattress’ integrity, resulting in us meeting together in the middle at some point during the night.
You know how you know when someone is sleeping next to you because you can feel their weight pulling the mattress down. Not here!
The transfer of motion works as beautifully as one would hope. It’s weird because when I’m lying on the mattress, I can hear my girlfriend moving, but it’s not until I hear her feet plant on the colonial era pumpkin pine flooring that I know she has actually left the surface of the mattress.
On a side note, my girlfriend will occasionally ask to take a nap in my bed. I know the blackout curtains in my room are great for daytime napping, but I think she secretly wants my Tuft & Needle mattress. She made this clear when she offered to accept it as a donation if at any point during Tuft & Needle’s 100 day return period the mattress wasn’t for me.
Now that I think about it, there was a point after receiving the mattress that I began to question its integrity. My Tuft & Needle mattress currently rests on a Zinus 14'' steel frame and has since day one. Roughly 2 weeks after I had been sleeping on the mattress, I began to slightly feel part of the steel frame underneath when I’d roll from one side of the mattress to the other.
To make a short story long, I reached out to Tuft & Needle about the issue -- phenomenal customer service. By the by, I’m not looking for someone to give me a back massage while supporting my customer issues, but damn was Tuft & Needle’s support team 1,200 miles short of doing it.
The Tuft & Needle support rep was more respectful and attentive then I’d ever expect any person to be, and throughout the process, always made me feel like they had my back. Their support team mentioned that the mattress goes through a break in period, which could explain why I slightly felt the steel frame under the mattress.
They also mentioned it could also, though not likely, be a defect in the mattress, but if it were, they assured me that they would replace it or offer me a full refund.
Tuft & Needle’s support team said to give the mattress some more time to break in, I did just that, and to this day, I no longer feel any part of the frame of which my Tuft & Needle mattress rests upon.
Is it Easy To clean?
Even with bed sheets, mattresses do get dirty. The cleaning protocol recommended by Tuft & Needle is to spot clean. The Tuft & Needle mattress comes with a protective covering, but it’s not recommended to remove and wash it.
So spot cleaning it is! With the Young Living Thieves all purpose cleaner I had at the time, I sprayed specific area of the mattress, and with a paper towel and a little elbow grease, easily removed any stains or marks from the mattress. I took a particular liking to how easily stains and marks were moved, almost as if they were sitting on just the surface, waiting for a push to be free.
Conclusion
While there may be other bed-in-a-box mattresses that could have provided a very similar, if not better, experience for me, Tuft & Needle’s mattress met every expectation I could ever have from a mattress and more.
The engineers of this mattress have impressed me. I have a great respect for a people that work hard and give much thought to solving problems that plague humanity. While I’m just an incredibly small fraction of that population, Tuft & Needle, at the very least, completely solved any mattress and sleeping problems that plagued me.
I’d really like to be fair and say something negative about this mattress -- if it warrants it, of course -- but damn if I tried hard the other day to come up with something and just couldn’t. I mean, if there is one thing negative I could say about the Tuft & Needle mattress, it’s, the -- well, I’ve got nothing. Seriously.
If you’re in the market for a new mattress, truly consider Tuft & Needle. I bought their queen size mattress a year ago for under $600 and took a huge gamble by not laying on it beforehand. Though, in retrospect, it wasn’t as big of a gamble as dropping $4,000 on a mattress from the local sleep experts.
Tuft & Needle’s mattress is just what you need if you sleep alone or with someone else, are looking for very little transfer of motion with a solid and level integrity, are sensitive to chemical scents (the lovely faint smell it had was completely gone in a week), and are willing to accept that a not too soft, nor too firm, sleeping surface could work for you.
There’s no risk with Tuft & Needle’s “100 Night Trial Policy”. If on day 99, you decide this mattress isn’t for you -- for any reason -- they’ll provide you with a full refund. What’s even cooler is that your unwanted mattress will likely be donated to charity.
You can keep reading about every other bed-in-a-box mattress to the point of paralysis by analysis, but at some point, you’re going to have to just take a chance and buy a mattress.
If to further convince you of my word’s value, consider my word on Jeep’s legendary inline six engine being a bulletproof, low-end torque work horse, on “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls being one of the best songs ever written, and on the late, great George Carlin leaving us too early and using the guise of a comedian to convey philosophical wisdom on the strange, but never without interest, existence we are all a part of, for a little while, at least.
11/15/2018