Why I invested in a mattress from Casper – and why you should buy a Casper, too

Let me say upfront that I probably wouldn’t be writing a post about the Casper mattress on my financial blog if Casper didn’t have an excellent affiliate scheme.

In short, if you buy a mattress from Casper via the links in this article, then you save £50 on the purchase price and they reward me with £50 in Amazon gift vouchers.

There, I said it. Talk about radical transparency, eh?

Don’t click away! Magazines are supported by advertising. Even Which? charges subscription fees. A blogger also has to eat.

Besides, I have plenty to say about this high-quality mattress – and some of it will be very useful if you’re unfamiliar with modern mattress shopping.

I bought the mattress when I had no other furniture in my brand new flat, and it was a godsend. I definitely recommend it.

Here’s why you should read my review before buying this or any other mattress.

Firstly and most importantly – if you do buy via the links in this article then you get £50 off the price of the mattress. So it’s a win-win for both of us.

Secondly, the Casper is the best mattress I’ve ever owned – and probably the best I’ve ever slept on (and I’ve slept in some pretty fancy hotels, especially with work).

Lights out, I zonk out, and I wake without a creak in my body. Perhaps it’s the new mattress smell wafting me away (we’ll get to that later) but I think it’s really the memory foam.

Thirdly, there are almost no reviews on the web from UK-based Casper mattress buyers. All the reviews are American. I live in London, so I thought I might be able to help British buyers make a decision.

Finally, there’s a 100-day money back trial when you buy from Casper. If you buy the mattress and you don’t like it, you can send it back. Hard to argue with a zero-risk proposition like that.

Here’s my in-depth guide as to why the Casper mattress is well worth considering.

What’s so special about the Casper mattress?

I’ll get to what the Casper is made of in a moment. Obviously that’s the most important thing when it comes to sleeping.

But the big difference between the Casper and the last mattress you bought is Casper comes delivered to your house in a box!

Now if you’re thinking how can that possibly work, I hear you. To say I was dubious when I first heard about how the mattress would be mailed to me would be an understatement.

However I spent literally a whole night Googling around and found everyone saying the same thing – the mattress-in-a-box method works, and it works well.

(In a moment I’ll share some photos I took as proof!)

The mattress comes shrink-wrapped in a tightly sealed package. Once you cut open the package and lay the mattress down, it finds its natural shape.

It’s quite uncanny. The mattress isn’t inflatable or anything like that. But it is made of several layers of memory foam. This enables it to quickly return to its proper dimensions.

Unboxing the Casper mattress

Very few people have documented unwrapping their shrink-wrapped mattress.

So here is a quick series of photos showing me unboxing my Casper mattress – you can scroll through them quickly if you don’t like photos:

The box was brought to my bedroom by a friendly delivery man.

A surprise message. Yes, it’s cheesy. Yes, it makes you feel good.

If you’re looking at your mattress at this point and thinking “really?” – I’ve been there brother.

In the instructions it looks a bit like the lady is flapping it like a sheet. Don’t be fooled, this mattress is too well-built and heavy for that. I just lifted the corners a few times to help it along, though there’s no instructions saying you even need to do that.

Freeing the mattress from its wrapper was probably the most fun part of the whole process.

I know… it’s hard to believe that you’re going to get a great night’s sleep from this… thing.

…but you turn your back and suddenly there’s a mattress. Incredible!

Excuse the clutter in the background. These photos were taken in my legitimate New Flat (TM), not at a glossy photo shoot!

The whole unboxing is very simple. These photos and captions probably took you longer to scroll through than it took in reality.

However I have a couple of tips that you may want to read before you unwrap yours – should you decide to buy a Casper via my handy £50-off link I mentioned above.

But first, how is the mattress able to restore itself like that? What’s it made of?

Thanks for all the memory foam

I am not going to spend a lot of time pretending to be an expert on mattress manufacturing.

If you’re anything like me, you just care about: (1) Sleep quality and (2) Whether it’s worth the money?

However it’s worth knowing a few things about how the Casper is made, as this is what leads to the answers (1) “I sleep brilliantly” and (2) “Yes, I believe so.”

The key thing to know is that this is a memory foam mattress. That’s what makes it so comfortable.

However there’s more to a good mattress then simply shipping you a slab of foam.

The mattress needs to be breathable, supportive, and able to conduct heat away so that you don’t overheat in the night.

Casper does this via four layers of foam:

• Top layer – A breathable ‘open cell’ foam layer enables you to sleep cool, and gives the mattress its bounce.

• Second layer – A high-density layer that supports the pressure points of your body.

• Transition layer – This layer apparently boosts the comfort factor by spreading the weight of your body (and any other body you happen to be in bed with…)

• Support layer – The base layer supports the top layers, according to Casper. I think this is just code for “the mattress is not only 2-inches thick” to be honest. It’s the main body of the thing, and what makes the mattress a mattress.

I should also mention the entire mattress is wrapped in the stylish zipped cover that you can see in my photos.

This easily zips undone for removal, and Casper says the cover is easy to clean. (I haven’t tried to clean it – I’ve only had the mattress a couple of months, and I am not inclined to eating pizza in bed or other messy habits!)

For more information on the construction (you thrill-seeker) see Casper’s website.

Sleeping on the Casper mattress: Very comfortable indeed

Here’s the most important thing – the mattress is supremely lovely to sleep on.

I’ve tried to think of a way to tell you about it in words, and perhaps the best way is to explain how I keep failing to find them.

You see, I’ve been planning to finish this review for a week.

Every time I go to bed, I think to myself: “Pay attention! Then you can explain what it feels like to sleep on the Casper in that review you’re finishing up tomorrow.”

And then I wake up! I don’t even remember falling asleep. Bliss.

Obviously not every single night is a great sleep. There are days when I overdo the eating or drinking, or my girlfriend gets up in the night for toast or whatnot.

That’s never good for anyone’s sleep. The Casper is a mattress, not a general anesthetic.

But when I’m going to bed in a fit state, the mattress is like a time machine. I literally just wake up.

It’s that comfortable.

Talking of my girlfriend, the Casper is a great mattress if you share a bed. That’s because unlike some mattresses I’ve slept on, you don’t roll into each other.

You and your bumpy bits (shoulders, hips, and so on) sink slightly into the mattress. There they are supported by the foam.

However this sinking foam only ripples out a couple of inches from your body. It doesn’t reach the other person, which means they can sleep interrupted by your nocturnal movements.

Perhaps the same thing is possible with top-of-the-range spring mattresses that cost £1,000 or more. But in my experience, with springs there’s much more of a dip created by a body, and you can usually feel it as the other person moves.

With the Casper, you’re more like two islands in the same bed. Idyllic!

What about firmness?

Friends have asked me this – what with the Casper being quite new to the UK and them being curious about it (and its arrival in a box…)

It’s hard to answer exactly, because firmness is quite subjective.

I’d say it’s pretty firm. It’s certainly not hard, and it’s definitely not soft, even though your body does sink into the memory foam a little by design.

To me that’s the Goldilock’s scenario – just right! It’s supportive, without being squishy.

But be aware if you do like a rock hard or super-soft mattress (why?) then this might not be the mattress for you.

Of course with the 100-day free trial when you buy, you’ve got the reassurance of knowing that if the mattress does turn out to be too firm or soft for your tastes, Casper will collect it and give you your money back. Can’t ask for more than that.

For a second opinion, I asked my girlfriend for her review of the Casper mattress.

She messaged back:

For me the main thing I really enjoy is the lack of springs, because that’s where I can really feel the difference. The mattress in my flat is old and the springs have spread everywhere, which leads to a night’s sleep akin to being at sea.

I find the Casper firm but not hard – it feels supportive more than anything, although the memory foam does make nighttime a whole lot warmer!

So overall another fan, but let’s dwell on that ‘warmer’ comment. Because I’d say this is my girlfriend’s only complaint with the Casper mattress. She agrees it’s a very comfortable sleep, but she also says it’s sometimes toastier than she’d like compared to my old mattress, or her own bed back at her flat.

I simply don’t have this issue. I agree the Casper is warm, but to me it is snug and cozy warm.

So who is right? Partly it’s down to taste, but here are two further points for context.

Firstly, my new flat has just been completed and meets the highest building regulations. There are no drafts at all, and air only really gets circulated by the trickle vents built into the windows for that very purpose.

In addition there is underfloor heating throughout the flat. The (excessive) five thermostats situated around the flat confirm that unless you leave the backdoor open for half an hour in the middle of the night, the temperature rarely drops below 22-degrees.

In contrast, my girlfriend’s flat has terrible old-fashioned electric heaters. Brrr!

As for my old place, it was 150 years old and drafty. All my bedding came with me from there to the new flat. Arguably I need to get some lighter tog bedding!

Secondly, my girlfriend is one of those infuriating people who sleeps with the duvet wrapped around her nose and an extra share of blanket pulled over from my side of the bed, and who then sometimes says she’s hot.

Really? Maybe don’t wrap yourself up like a mummy?

“I can’t help it, I need all the blankets to get to sleep!” she replies.

As I say, your mileage may vary, especially if you’re rather more rationale about your sleep habits…

My only complaint: The initial ‘new’ smell

Like I said, I find the mattress perfectly warm and perfectly comfortable.

But it’s not quite perfect.

The one niggle in the ointment for me is the new plastic-y smell it comes with.

Now, as someone who has been buying a lot of new furniture lately, I’ve found this comes with everything – sofas, rugs, even tables and chairs.

It’s called ‘off-gassing’ by the professionals. The smell is actually various gasses from the manufacturing process (especially from glue and the like, but really from any artificial substance) being emitted.

Eventually this dies down, and it does too with the Casper.

But of course you don’t normally put your face a pillow-width away from a sofa or a rug for eight hours a night. That does make it more noticeable with a mattress.

The smell is by far at its worst for the first 72 hours. If you can, I suggest you unwrap the mattress in a spare room and open the windows and close the door for a few days. After it’s been aired for a while the smell is much less noticeable.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly possible to live with it. In fact lots of people seemingly don’t even notice the smell, judging by other Casper testimonies I read when researching buying a mattress.

And my girlfriend had to have the smell pointed out to her for her verdict. She wasn’t really bothered.

In contrast I do tend to be very sensitive to smells. Also as I’ve said my flat is pretty airtight, which probably didn’t help.

But in the interests of full transparency, I do want to flag up this smell as a slight downer. It goes away, but it would be better if it was never there.

The final verdict: Buy a Casper mattress

As is probably very clear, I recommend you get a Casper mattress and treat yourself to a wonderfully relaxing sleep.

Do it via my link and you’ll get £50 off the mattress, too. In addition I’ll be paid some Amazon credits for my trouble!

I’ve recommended the Casper to several friends, and a couple followed up on my suggestion. They are very happy with the mattress – one even wrote to me to say thanks, unprompted!

Recommending the Casper mattress is also a zero-risk proposition thanks to the 100-day money back guarantee. If you don’t like it, you can simply give it back for a full refund. If only all investments came with such great terms.

Buy a Casper and sleep easy. I’m very confident you won’t regret it.

Update: I’ve had the Casper for another two months since writing this review, and if anything I like it even more. I’ve bought a lot of new stuff for my flat. The Casper was among the least hassle to order, it beat my high expectations, and it was great value for money. Remember you get £50 off your own purchase via this affiliate link!