Review | The Emma mattress

Chris and I have a dilemma which I’m sure many couples share: he sleeps on his front and prefers a soft mattress, whereas I tend to sleep on my back and prefer a firmer one. We’ve always ended up compromising with something in the middle, which means that neither of us is ever truly comfortable. So, when I was asked to review the Emma mattress, which is designed to suit every body type and sleeping position, I agreed straight away.

The Emma mattress was designed by a guy called Max, who struggled to find the right mattress when he moved in with his girlfriend and decided to create his own after weeks of poor sleep. It’s manufactured right here in the UK (in Derby, to be exact), and it’s also available in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Poland.

First things first: it’s not cheap. Prices range from £349 for a single to £699 for a super-king, but given we spend almost a third of our lives asleep – and the mattress is designed to last for 10 years or more – the cost per use is actually very low. And you don’t need to waste any time trawling around shops trying to test out different firmness levels while a sales assistant hovers nearby; instead, you just choose the size you want and it arrives a couple of days later.

There’s no hassle when it comes to delivery, either. The mattress arrives vacuum packed inside a surprisingly compact cardboard box, which I meant I could have it sent to my office (no waiting around all day for the post van) and drive it home in the back of the car. Then it was just a case of snipping off the plastic film with the handy cutting tool provided and watching the mattress unfurl itself before my eyes.

As soon as it was unwrapped, I noticed just how smart it is. I know you shouldn’t really care about the way a mattress looks – it’s always covered in sheets, after all – but this one really is pretty, with smart grey sides that turned out to be the perfect match for our existing bed.

And my is it comfortable! It’s made of several layers: supportive cold foam, pressure-relieving pocket springs, memory foam which moulds itself to the shape of your body, and a hyper-soft breathable layer which distributes weight evenly. It supports my back and shoulders, where I often suffer from pain, and I no longer wake in the middle of the night feeling stiff and sore; it’s also ideal for lounging around on Sunday mornings with a coffee and a good read! What’s more, the memory foam cushions movement, so we’re no longer woken by the other person turning over, or by the cat jumping up on the bed at 3am.

Speaking of the cat, who spends more time asleep than any other member of the household, he’s also given the mattress his stamp of approval. He dozed off on top of it almost as soon as it arrived, and he’s spent most nights since then curled up by our side (he used to prefer the spare room bed to ours).

Head over to the Emma website if you’d like to try the mattress for yourself. You can test it for 100 nights, with a free return service and a full refund if it’s not quite right for you.

All photography by Abi Dare 

I was given a free mattress for the purpose of this review, but all words and opinions are my own.