Puffy Mattress Reviews: Industry Veteran’s Report And Test Results
Puffy.Com actually sells three different mattresses that I will discuss in depth. My Puffy Mattress reviews explain the features and benefits of all three models, including The Puffy Original, Puffy Luxe, and The Puffy Royal Mattress.
First off, I’ll tell you that after reviewing and pulling apart hundreds of test mattresses from dozens of brands to evaluate them for comfort and support, I’m pretty picky about most brands. I spent 25 years a as a mattress designer and engineered my own brands for several online mattress sites.
The average mattress shopper doesn’t want to know about the quality of the foam and coil layers used, fire barriers, even the methods used during construction, but Puffy’s three mattress lineup has always been a perennial first option for customers who email me and ask, “does Puffy live up to the hype, and which one should I buy?”
So let’s get into it. In my Puffy mattress reviews below, I’ll explain why the Puffy Mattress Lineup performs really well against other top brands. This is likely because the company invests in better components, and they are made in their own facilities, including Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Mexico to name a few.
The company also tends to focus on the relationship of pain to sleep deprivation and has a disciplined ethos about design and fabrication- something I really like. So, here are my detailed reports and Puffy mattress reviews of all three models, including The Puffy Original, The Puffy Luxe, and The Puffy Royal Mattress
The Puffy Original Mattress
The Puffy Original, The Puffy Lux, and The Puffy Royal (recently added to their lineup) are designed with similar features, but Puffy Original mattress is a bit firmer, easier to turn on, and has less body contact, important if you are a hot sleeper.
The Puffy Original Mattress is an all foam mattress that offers a layer of what they term the “Cooling Cloud Comfort Layer”, made with a formula specifically designed to mold and cradle your body without sinking, to relieve the pressure points and stress that a typical mattress places on your hips, shoulders, knees, and joints.
It sells for $1,049 in queen size and $1,249 in king size after discounts that the company typically offers when you purchase online. The mattress is 10″ tall and is shipped vacuum packaged and rolled directly to your door.
Our sample arrived in pristine condition with no damage to the box, and I simply unfurled the rolled mattress, slit the bag to allow it to take on air, and within 30 minutes the mattress had reconstituted. I recommend allowing all Puffy models to condition and take on air for 24 hours before expecting to see it at its original height. We noticed that plopping it up and down really helped to instantly get it to pop up.
| Ideal For: Couples, light sleepers, hot sleepers, shoulder pressure, side sleepers. | Considerations: Not ideal if you want a really soft mattress. Not ideal for bigger bodies (over 275lbs.) |
Designed to ventilate and breathe, this top layer will ensure your body remains at a neutral temperature so you can sleep soundly through the night. I’d describe the initial fee of The Puffy Original Mattress
Right below the top layer of Cooling Cloud™ foam, Puffy’s ClimateComfort™ foam layer protects your mattress from extreme temperature fluctuations by cooling itself when it’s hot and warming up when it’s cold, which the company says leads to a consistently comfortable and less-disruptive night’s sleep.
It also counters seasonal contraction and expansion that often plagues other mattresses, ensuring you get the same feel throughout the year.
Foams without this adaptive technology can crack, split, and fail due to body motion stresses on the materials.
On the very bottom of the Puffy Original Mattress, as in most foam mattresses, is the supportive and firmer base layer, called the Firm Core Support Layer™, which adds a denser, more supportive tone designed to distribute body weight horizontally rather than down, to ensure correct spine alignment and to reduce pinpoint pressure.
Right below the top layer of Cooling Cloud™ foam, Puffy’s ClimateComfort™ foam layer protects your mattress from extreme temperature fluctuations by cooling itself when it’s hot and warming up when it’s cold, which the company says leads to a consistently comfortable and less-disruptive night’s sleep.
It also counters shrinking and expansion between seasons that is a problem with other all foam mattresses, ensuring you get the same feel throughout the year. Foams without this adaptive technology can crack, split, and fail due to body movement stresses on the materials.
On the very bottom of the Puffy Original Mattress, as in most foam mattresses, is the supportive and firmer base layer, called the Firm Core Support Layer™, which adds a denser, more supportive tone designed to distribute body weight horizontally rather than down, to ensure correct spine alignment and to reduce pinpoint pressure.
Unlike your typical foam mattress, this base layer still gives and adapts to your unique body shape to allow for continuous blood circulation and pressure relief to alleviate any tossing and turning while you sleep.
The Puffy Lux Mattress: Foam Or Hybrid Options
If you want a bit more of a body contouring feel that hugs you more closely and is slightly softer, opt for The Puffy Lux model. I found it to be softer but still uplifting and “cloud like”, but had no digging my way out sensation. Of the two all foam mattresses that Puffy offers, I tended to prefer the Puffy Lux, simply because it was slightly thicker at 12″ tall, and a bit plusher, which I prefer.
The Puffy Lux Mattress sells for $1499 in queen size, and $1699 in king size, with free shipping, a 101 night no questions asked trial period, and has a lifetime warranty
The main difference between the Puffy Original Mattress and the Puffy Lux, is the addition of another layer of specialized foam right below the top Cooling Cloud™ layer called the Plush Dual Cloud™ layer, an exclusive material that provides incredibly soothing, adaptive support as well as body contouring.
Note: you can also choose the Puffy Lux Hybrid Mattress option, which is the newest version of the Puffy Lux. It incorporates a pocketed coil system underneath the cooling gel and memory foam layers. It competes strongly against other big brand mattresses that literally cost twice as much, and aren’t as well reviewed as the Puffy Lux has been for the last few years now.
This specialized layer works in harmony with the Cooling Cloud™ layer to melt away your body’s pressure points and provide you with an amazing night’s sleep.
The Puffy Lux is the company’s most popular model, by far actually, and is priced far below big box retail store brands like Tempur-Pedic, Sealy/Serta, ($2500 and up) and others.
| Ideal For: Side and back sleepers, hot sleepers, pain, lower back pain | Considerations: Not ideal if you want a firmer mattress. Foam version not ideal for bigger bodies (over 275lbs.) or combined weights over 475lbs. |
One thing owners who’ve reviewed their Puffy Lux consistently say is that the mattress delivers good spine alignment qualities, and sleeps far cooler than memory foam mattresses they started out with.
I’d say that the Puffy Lux is a good step up mattress from your first, and likely ranks as an investment mattress that you can depend on for a good 8 years or so.
You’ll get the company’s 101 night trail period, allowing you to return the mattress at no charge if you don’t love it. My own daughter has one and she and her husband have enjoyed it, even though her small children seem to end up there in the morning to cuddle up.
Also, you will get a lifetime warranty on any Puffy Mattress, and the mattresses are made completely in the USA, with no components or fabrication done overseas.
That’s an important element to me, and Puffy is one of few companies who bench builds their mattresses from the ground up in their own factories, not third party fabrication houses.
Compare the cost of all three Puffy mattresses which rival Sealy and Simmons Black models, which retail for $3000-$4500. Read our article on why people throw away money on overpriced mattresses.
The Puffy Royal Mattress
The Puffy Royal Mattress was created to offer a more immersive cloud like feel, (without that trapped feeling), better cooling technology, and zoned support that targeted pressure and pain even more accurately. If you suffer from pain, especially leg pain, back, even neck pain, this option might be worth taking the 101 night trial and giving it a road test.
At the very top of the 14” thick mattress is a 1.5-inch cooling layer of what the industry refers to as “infused gel/memory foam”. The gel and memory foam components are infused with cooling beads that reduce heat retention and provide the most consistent and comfortable sleep you have ever experienced.
I definitely could feel an instant cooling effect that too just minutes to notice, but it wasn’t ice cold to the touch like many mattresses are that have phase change materials used in the outer cover. For example. Tempur-Pedic has several memory foam mattresses that use these super cooling fabrics, but my feeling is that I don’t want to be feeling like I’m touching the inside of my freezer when I crawl into my bed at night.
Beneath the top layer of infused gel/memory foam, you’ll experience reflexive pressure relief and The Puffy Royal will adjust to the shape of your body with just enough reflexive bounce to relieve stress.
It’s a little like latex, but not as springy, though a little bounce factor is an essential element to any proper mattress design, in my opinion.
This top layer allows your body to immerse into the layer beneath it, wicking away heat by distributing it laterally instead of downward where body heat tends to collect.
This material is a specialized, highly flexible 2” layer of poylurethane foam. This second layer of premium foam which works to will restore your body throughout the night, keeping you in a subtle state of dynamic “micro-motion”, preventing pressure points and soreness, so you can wake up rejuvenated every morning.
Just beneath the pressure relieving layer is a unique material has the same advanced cooling capacity of the Puffy Lux, but the Royal is designed to create passive ventilation through the mattress.
A multi-directional 5 layer system sets the Puffy Royal apart with advanced SMT technology for enhanced spine support.
If you or your partner is a hot sleeper, it’s one of only a handful of brands I’ve studied that build in systems that actively move hot air from body heat away, to the sides of the mattress.
Five separate support zones designed to provide varying degrees of pressure relieving pushback and yielding softness are specific to different areas of the body. The Puffy Royal is about the only mattress in its class with precision body zone support that sells for $2399 delivered, after $300 discount using my link.
Five zones, each with unique and varying degrees of softness vs. firmer and more resilient support provide the equilibrium required for restorative rest.
The Puffy Royal is designed to provide customized support to the back, and a softer feel for the head, neck, shoulders and feet.
No other foam mattress offers this precise level of spine and back support along with leg support, often left out in many conventional mattress designs.
If your legs are not properly aligned with your spine while you sleep, muscles and connective tissues work during the night, producing lactic acid that results in morning stiffness and soreness.
If you are a really hot sleeper though- take a look The unique SMT cloud design in the Puffy Royal minimizes heat absorption, resulting in superior airflow throughout the mattress. It’s a weird, channeled materials that literally ventilates hot air away from your body.
| Ideal For: All positions, hot sleepers, pain and pressure, couples and bigger bodies. Often the last resort for those who have tried other brands. | Considerations: A tad pricier than other memory foam brands |
Spending four solid years developing their prototype, Puffy has selectively chosen only the highest of quality raw materials to ensure longevity and comfort. From their utilization of a cooling fabric that moves and stretches with your body movements, to incorporating outstanding foam support and comfort layers, they’ve successfully built a high-quality mattress at an affordable price.
Puffy builds their mattresses exclusively in the United States from start to finish. They offer a 101 night no questions asked trial period, which I think is the perfect amount of time to really make sure you love a mattress, with free returns should you not be completely satisfied, and they offer a really sleek 15-year warranty.
4. puffy builds in small batches to control quality, and roll packs their beds immediately before shipping
One of the most well kept secrets in the “bed in a box” online mattress business is the simple fact that most manufacturers and retailers use third party fabrication facilities to produce their beds. The most efficient and cost effective method for building and production is to have a large crew do a run of several hundred or in some cases, a thousand, mattresses at once.
The beds are built, glued together, and then compressed and rolled, soon to be stuffed into boxes. The boxes are then hauled to the loading dock and cued for pick up by FedEx or UPS or freight carriers. They often sit idle like this for weeks or as we have observed, for as long as a month at some fabrication houses.
Puffy, however, employs a “small batch” policy that insures that production is controlled by the demand for the product, and that no mattress stays compressed prior to shipping for longer than 1-2 days maximum. This unique practice is practically unheard of in the “bed in a box” business which now dominates the mattress industry today.
5. contours to body with minimal motion transfer
Because of the density of the foam components used, the Puffy mattress as well as the Lux and Royal models, offer excellent edge support, which makes transferring in and out bed easy, especially at night when you’re groggy, or when you need to put on a pair of running shoes.
All three models are also excellent at minimizing motion transfer thanks to the extra thick layer of gel infused memory foam which spreads weight laterally and reduces rippling effects caused by motion.
Because the “cake recipe” of the Puffy lineup was well thought out and carefully engineered, the combined or orchestrated effect of the ingredients work very well together and provide an excellent level of contour and resilience which help in absorbing motion and restricting it to a particular area.
Spending four solid years developing their initial prototype, Puffy has selectively chosen only the highest of quality raw materials to ensure longevity and comfort. From their utilization of a cooling fabric that moves and stretches with your body movements, to incorporating outstanding foam support and comfort layers, they’ve successfully built a high-quality mattress at an affordable price.
Puffy builds their mattresses exclusively in the United States from start to finish. They offer a 101 night no questions asked trial period, that we love, with free returns should you not be completely satisfied, and they offer a really sleek 15-year warranty.
Couples find all three models of the Puffy lineup to be beneficial in solving motion transfer issues, too. This means that if you have a sleeping partner that tosses and turns all night or moves in and out of the bed regularly, you can still benefit from restorative sleep without having your partner disturbing you.
The mattresses are designed to calm restless sleepers as well, with body conforming foams that help to properly cradle a sleeper and calm leg movements and constant repositioning. The layers also provide solid support and bounce which help restricting the body from sinking in too much.
You will not feel the lighter partner rolling towards the heavier partner on this mattress, a notorious problem with memory foam beds. The design promotes proper spine alignment and offers just the right amount of bounce, without being too springy and jiggly.
Reviews And Customer Satisfaction
We scoured multiple review sites to see just how much customers loved their Puffy mattress and were pretty surprised at what we found.
Unlike other review sites, where you’re relying on Chad in cargo shorts to give you his opinion, we use my 20+ years of industry experience running our own mattress companies to evaluate thousands of reviews that owners have contributed…that’s right- reviews by folks who have purchased the Puffy mattress and are using it in real time. The results are pretty impressive, considering all three models are so simplistically designed.
An archival examination of over 3,448 reviews offered by actual users provided our team with a customer satisfaction rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars, one of the highest rated beds we’ve reviewed and recommended, and we’re pretty happy about that. If you are looking for your dream bed, a mattress designed with universal appeal, we’ve provided a few links that get you to Puffy’s site and offers excellent discounts (how about $300 off?) if you order soon.
The Differences and Relationship Between The Density, Weight, and Firmness Used In The Puffy Mattress Components Vs Other All Foam Beds
If you were to tell the average consumer that foam used in mattress building and design involved three different characteristics that determine its quality, they would be density, weight, and degree of firmness.
Each of these characteristics makes sense and seems logical by themselves, but the recipe and the art of combining just the right combination to create the “sweetspot” of comfort and support that we are all in search of in the perfect bed, becomes a bit more challenging. But why is this important when shopping for a mattress?
One of the most confusing things about understanding a foam bed is the relationship between these material characteristics. On the surface, it would seem the density or weight of a material would allow you to draw a correlation about its firmness, and vice versa. In general, this might be true, but when applied to extruded foam products, density and firmness are independent values for determining a foam’s qualities.
The Bottom Layer Of A Quality Foam Mattress Should Be Fabricated Using 2.8LB Density HD36 Foam: What That Means And Why Puffy Incorporates These High Caliber Ingredients Into Their Design
First of all, it would be accurate to say that density is a foam characteristic that is over-used in mattress descriptions and bullet point features and means nothing to the typical consumer.
The density of foam means the same thing as any other application of the term- the weight or mass of a material per a measurable size or volume. This applies to all varieties of foam, including blown polystyrene (EPS), polyethylene, polyurethane foam (which is the most widely used and is found in the Puffy Mattress lineup along with other brands), and others.
How density is measured varies though, and in the case of foam, density is determined by weighing a 12″ x 12″ x 12″ block of the material. If a product has a 3LB density, that means that a 12″ x 12″ x 12″ block will weigh 3LB. And while it’s important to understand that density doesn’t really relate to the firmness of a foam product, it is a direct measure of the quality and longevity of a particular foam.
Many high density polyurethane foam used in mattress design, especially lower price point and economy models, have a density between 1LB and 3LB. However, the densest materials can be as much as 10 or 15LB.
High-density foam, such 2.8LB density foam, is perfect for in applications that receive heavy or daily use, like couch cushions, bedding, or automobile seating. Lower density foam is excellent for single or occasional use products like shipping foam, crafts, or mattress toppers for guest accommodations.
Density is also sometimes interchangeably used with weight when talking about foams, and is a more literal translation of the characteristic given the testing process. With mattress making, you need to know a products weight, let’s say to know how whether it is easy to carry or handle, or its density weight.
Consider a 6-inch thick, conventional foam queen mattress with a 2.8LB density weight. The material weight is correctly stated as 2.8LB, for a chunk that measures 12x12x12, since that’s its density. However, the overall weight of the mattress would be about 46LB, taking into account the overall volume.
Transitional Layers Used In The Puffy Mattress: 1.4LB Density Foam
Firmness meanwhile, interprets the feel of foam and how it yields to weight and pressure. When the Puffy Mattress team was hunting for the ideal components at just the right density for their first mattress, they were certainly considering a measurement called Indentation Load Deflection (ILD) (also known as Indentation Force Deflection/IFD), which can be measured by mechanical performance testing.
A foam sample measuring 15″ by 15″ by 4″ is used and the force in pounds that it takes a 50 square inch circular footpad or press to mash the material 1″ (25 percent of its thickness) is recorded. If the sample requires 36LB of pressure to indent it 1″, its ILD is 36. It is also important that the test material meets the standardized dimensions, as different thicknesses of the same material can support weight differently.
A hard foam material will require greater force to reach 25 percent compression, and a softer material will require less. Most common materials have ILD values from 8 to 70, with some materials as high as 120 to 150. These factors were carefully chosen to be able to calibrate the “cloud like” effect of The Puffy Mattress.
Firmness testing is done to help illustrate how a material will handle weight in consumer applications. It is important to interpret firmness values as an explanation of how the material actual “feels”, rather than its quality, which is reflected by its density. Because of the complex structural and chemical makeups of foam, some foam extruders can incorporate more or less air which is bubbled through the mixture as it is squeezed out of the machine, which control the density.
Foams with higher densities can even have a lower ILD than foams with lower densities. For this reason, the two values should be looked at independently and vary greatly in quality and in “feel”. In all three of The Puffy Mattress models, the designs produce what can be described as medium levels of interpreted firmness, so that there is substantial support, without either bottoming out on the mattress or feeling too stiff and not yielding beneath and providing optimal pressure point relief.
Understanding what these characteristics do and do not tell you about a foam material is very important for selecting the best mattress. By understanding the values of these measurements, you can have a better idea of what to expect from a product and make a more educated purchase.
An Interview With The Founder Of Puffy, Arthur Andreasyan
“My name is Arthur Andreasyan, and I’m the CEO at Puffy Mattress. Puffy is ranked as one of the best-rated mattresses you can buy online. We are serious about sleep and we’re obsessed with creating comfort.
Not just any kind of comfort – what makes Puffy different is our Cloud Comfort technology. We set out to invent a memory foam mattress that truly feels like sleeping on a cloud.
Our mission at Puffy is to highlight the importance of sleep, we think it should really be the center of all our attempts to live a healthy and fulfilling life.
What we are working on at the moment launching in new regions globally. We just launched Puffy Canada and Puffy UK, and our teams are excited and working hard to make an impact in these regions just as we have in the US.
It’s a competitive space and we’re proud of our wins, but expanding the range beyond just mattresses is something we’ve been focusing on. Growing our product range to add our signature modern style and comfort to the entire bedroom has been a fun project for all our teams.
Our cooling mattress and accessories range has received thousands of 5-star mattress reviews for comfort, support, and style. In developing all our products, we like to ensure we look at the sleep experience holistically.
It’s important for us to help our customers curate their entire sleep routine. A key part of sleeping well is creating a bedroom space that is designed for deep and rejuvenating rest.
What’s your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
After graduating from Cal State University, I dived into the e-commerce world and that’s where my passion still sits. I believe e-commerce will hold the future for the majority of retail transactions.
If you want to get better, faster, or smarter, you’ve got to push yourself every single day. Day in day out with consistency, not for days, but for years.
In 2016, I started Puffy and the vision has been growing ever since. Over the years I have focussed on various industries, but the e-commerce space has always held a special place for me.
The mattress industry is interesting, being a space that has been totally disrupted by e-commerce. It’s exciting to be part of an industry that has completely transformed. I noticed this shift and saw an opportunity to create a mattress company that redefines comfort and sleep experience.
Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?
The story behind Puffy started with a child-like wonder. I wondered…what would it actually feel like to sleep on a cloud? This thought launched a passion to create the most unbelievably soft cloud mattress.
The original Puffy launched in 2016 – our first-ever mattress with a made in the USA label. Today, there are 3 luxury mattresses in our range as well as a growing collection of bedroom accessories and furniture.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I generally follow two basic principles that guide most of our business decisions. First, it’s ensuring our customers are as happy as possible with their experience. Designing a customer-focused journey and support system was a key milestone for us and we continuously optimize our processes to ensure they are customer-centric.
The second key principle I use to drive my decisions is having a laser focus on the quality and benefits of our products. This attention to detail and confidence in our product is what has enabled us to offer customers a lifetime warranty on their mattress.
There are plenty of products on the market that promise good rest. The reason we’re in this business is that we’ve done real research to uncover exactly what healthy and supportive sleep should feel like. We want to create products people can feel good about investing in.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Like most growing e-commerce businesses, we use many many tools to consistently create a better experience for our customers. Some of my favorites include Google Analytics, Georgias, Rewind.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Good reads I would recommend include Facebook Advertising by Brian Meert, and Social Marketing Superstars by Cydney Sullivan. In terms of podcasts, I frequently tune in to Tom Bilyeu.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
You must have the ability to adapt to the ever-changing environment of the business or you will fall behind. I truly believe that we need to crave the result so intensely that the work is irrelevant.
The reality is, if you want to get better, faster, or smarter, you’ve got to push yourself every single day. Day in day out with consistency, not for days, but for years.