Nectar Memory Foam Mattress review – changed the game for chronic pain

I live with fibromyalgia. For a few hours each night, the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress made me forget about it. Filled with thick layers of dense foam, this mattress is made to absorb pain and relieve pressure so that you can sleep easy. 

Between my chronic pain, insomnia, and heat intolerance, I often struggle to sleep, and I need a mattress that meets each of my sleep needs. The Nectar Memory Foam Mattress didn't quite tick all of my boxes, but it's still one of the best mattresses I've ever tested. 

I'm part of the sleep product testing team at H&G. Together, we've sampled some of the world's best mattresses from all the specialist sleep stores. I know what to expect from a memory foam mattress: excellent motion isolation, comfort, and support, though the thermoregulation might leave a lot to be desired. 

Nectar Memory Foam Mattress review

I tested the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress for months before I reached my final verdict. I asked each member of my family to take it for a spin so that I could get the perspective of a front, back, and side sleeper. I assessed the mattress on the basis of comfort; quality of construction; cooling properties; motion isolation and edge support; capacity to bear weight; and the all-important price.

Nectar Memory Foam Mattress Specifications

Who will the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress suit?

• Anyone who likes a firmer surface: the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress strikes a careful balance between comfort and support. I'd recommend it for back and stomach sleepers, though it's insufficiently squishy to rank amongst the best mattresses for side sleepers. 
• Couples who share a bed, but not a sleep style: the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress offers medium-firm support to suit most sleepers.
• Light sleepers: like all the best memory foam mattresses, the Nectar Original offers exceptional motion isolation. Your partner could be tossing and turning on the other side of the bed, and you wouldn't feel a thing. 
• Particularly tall or broad sleepers: the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress is great for bearing weight and springs right back into shape. 
• Buyers on a budget: regularly discounted to just $650 for a Queen, the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress is the best affordable mattress on the market.
• Anyone who wants to try before they buy: Nectar offers a 365-night mattress sleep trial. That way, you can test your Nectar Memory Foam Mattress through all four seasons, through heat waves and cold snaps, before you commit to your purchase. Better yet: the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress comes with a lifetime warranty. 

What's it like to sleep on the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress?

Comfort

I wanted a mattress that was firm enough to support my body, but also soft enough to be comfortable.  Due to my fibromyalgia, I do wake up with some sore bones every once in a while; for the most part, there’s no pain I can directly relate to the mattress. I think the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress fits that sweet spot: it's neither too firm nor too soft.

Nectar states the mattress offers medium-firm support and I agree with that rating. I appreciated how the mattress sank underneath my chest area when I laid on my front allowing for some breathing room in that department, and when on my back, I felt like my body was in perfect alignment. 

While I prefer a semi-firm mattress, I had my family members lay on it and share their thoughts. My sister, who likes soft mattresses, thought this bed was way too firm. She might prefer a plusher surface, such as the SweetNight Prime Memory Foam Mattress. 

Weight Test

I took a dumbbell and set it in the center of the bed to see how well the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress bears weight. I found there was more sinkage with the dumbbell than my own body: likely because the weight of the dumbbell is concentrated in a smaller space. There was a ¾ inch of sinkage, which isn’t too much at all. The mattress did sink under the weight of my body, but it wasn’t too deep − it was more of an impression than anything else (similar to many other foam mattresses.). As soon as I got up, the foam would perk up again and resume to its normal state. After sleeping on this mattress for several months, it still looks as good as new with no indications of more stubborn imprints.  

Breathability and cooling 

As someone who runs hot, having a mattress with cooling properties was a necessity. The first layer of the mattress is a poly-blend quilted cover that features heat-wicking and cooling technology. While this mattress was cooler than others I’ve had in the past, I still did wake up in sweaty on most nights. Yes, that’s even with a fan blowing on me at full speed. If I were to continue sleeping on the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress, I'd want to pair it with one of the best cooling mattress toppers or pads. If I were shopping for a specifically cooling mattress, I'd opt for the Tempur-Pedic ProAdapt Medium Hybrid Mattress, instead: it's plenty breathable, with all those stainless steel springs to boost airflow. 

Motion Isolation

If you share a bed, motion isolation is super important because if one of you moves, it could disturb the other and that’s not fun. To test the motion isolation, I filled a cup with water and left it on the edge of the mattress as I rolled around. Even as I put my hands directly around the cup, there was no motion. That's pretty typical for memory foam mattresses: all that thick foam absorbs motion.

Edge Support

However, when it came to the edges, that’s where it went south. While the brand says the matters have consistent and firm edge support, I didn’t experience that. The edges really sunk under the weight and did not hold up. A hybrid mattress, with its rows of reinforced steel springs, would likely have better motion isolation. I recommend the Saatva Classic: it's not just the best hybrid mattress on the market, but the best mattress, period. 

Setting up the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress

The mattress arrived at my doorstep in a big blue box. At a whopping 55 pounds, I could barely lift the box but I was able to kick it into my living room. When I took the mattress out of the box, it was compressed and wrapped up in plastic. After about 10 minutes of unrolling the plastic, the mattress was ready to be laid out. I put it on the floor and watched it come to life. Setting up the mattress required nothing on my end aside from unwrapping it and placing it in a large enough area. There was an unpleasant off-gassing smell at the start, but you'd get that with any memory foam mattress, and it dissipated after a few hours.

This mattress features five layers: a quilted poly-blend cover with polyethylene, (which provides that cool-to-the-touch sensation); 3 inches of gel memory foam to aid in pressure relief, 2 inches of soft transition foam to bounce back after prolonged use, and 7 inches of supportive base layer foam to keep the other layers intact and performing optimally. All of the foams used in the Nectar mattress are CertiPUR-US® certified.

Before I lay down, I put on the Nectar Mattress Protector, a thin and invisible layer designed to protect the mattress from dirt, spills, and pet dander. It went on just like a fitted sheet and had a barely-there feel. If it gets dirty, it can get tossed in the washing machine and easily cleaned which is a perk. I'd say it's one of the best mattress protectors on the market. 

How does the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress rate online?

The Nectar Memory Foam Mattress boasts a 4.7 star rating, based on more than 50,000 reviews from the Nectar site. You can filter for reviews from customers who share your sleep style to get a better measure of how you might like the mattress. 

Happy customers praise the comfort of the mattress, as well as its value for money, especially when compared against adjustable beds for back pain. Some more mixed reviews concern the firmness of the mattress and its lack of breathability, though that's par for the course with memory foam.

Is the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress worth it?

A queen-sized Nectar Memory Foam Mattress retails for $1,099, but it's often listed for a lot less in the mattress sales. I'd happily pay full price for this mattress: it gave me a new lease on life. I no longer dreaded waking up in excruciating pain and actually wanted to go to sleep. I can't say it's the best cooling mattress I've tried, but it stayed cool to the touch throughout the night.

How we test the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress

We put a lot of thought into how we test mattresses. It's more than a matter of sleeping on job. Our expert testers sleep on mattresses for months, if not years, to monitor their performance over time and assess their breathability through all four seasons. Memory foam mattresses, such as the Nectar Original, tend to trap heat, so it's especially important for our testers to evaluate their cooling properties.

It's not all about breathability. We also describe the firmness and feel of a mattress to see whether it suits front, back, or side sleepers best. We measure the weight-bearing capacity of a mattress by taking a dumbbell and setting it in the center of a bed. We see how far the weight sinks into the mattress and how quickly the surface springs back into shape once the weight is removed. When it comes to memory foam mattresses, such as the Nectar Original, I'd expect the weight to sink deep into the plush surface, which should spring back into shape within seconds. 

Our motion isolation test might be the strangest. We fill a glass with water and set it on one side of the bed. Then, we toss and turn beside the glass and see how much water spills over the side. The more water spills, the poorer the motion isolation.

We take our findings from these tests and compare them against our results from other mattress tests. That way, we can tell you which mattress you should buy for superior edge support, say, or better breathability. At the end, we tie it all back to the cost to help you determine whether this mattress offers good value for money.