Nolah Mattresses Review 2024: A Bed for Everyone

CNET has conducted a comprehensive review of Nolah's mattress lineup, showcasing its diverse range of options designed to meet the needs of various sleepers. From the affordable Nolah Original to the luxurious Evolution Hybrid, CNET thoroughly examines the features, comfort levels, and suitability of each model, highlighting Nolah's ability to cater to different preferences and budgets. Their detailed insights provide valuable guidance for anyone considering a Nolah mattress. Here's an excerpt from the article, and read the full article here.

What CNET Has to Say

Nolah is a popular online mattress brand. It has been around for a while, and its lineup of mattresses has slowly expanded over the years. You can get a wide variety of beds from Nolah today, ranging from affordable, classic foam mattress options to more luxurious pillow-top mattresses and even a natural latex bed. Nolah has offerings which cater to a wide variety of sleepers, so it can be tough to pick the perfect Nolah mattress for you. We've tested all their offerings, and in this review, we’ll cover all the things you need to know about all the beds from Nolah, starting with its most affordable mattress, all the way to the most expensive.

Nolah First Impressions

My first impressions of the beds from Nolah varied from mattress to mattress, but I found them all to be solid from the get-go. The Nolah Original and the Nolah Signature were the first beds from Nolah I was able to test, and those have a unique feel that I typically don’t see, but it didn’t take long to get used to, and I found them to be quite comfortable.

The two versions of the Nolah Evolution were impressive right out of the box with its hybrid, pillow-top designs that feel comfy, supportive and wouldn’t seem out of place at a fancy hotel. They were a definite but welcome departure from the first Nolah mattresses, because pretty much everyone likes this pillow-top style.

Nolah Original Mattress

The Nolah Original is Nolah’s classic all-foam mattress, now updated with a six-layer foam construction designed for pressure relief, lumbar support, and everyday comfort.

At the top, the mattress uses Nolah AirFoam® to provide cushioning pressure relief without the slow-sinking feel of traditional memory foam. This comfort layer is designed to help relieve pressure around common sensitive areas like the shoulders, hips, and back, while maintaining a more breathable feel.

Beneath the comfort layer, the Original includes supportive transition foam and Tri-Zone™ Foam, which adds targeted support through the center of the mattress. This helps keep the lower back and hips more supported while allowing more give around the shoulders.

The mattress is built on a durable high-density foam base that gives the bed its structure and long-term support. Overall, the Nolah Original has a balanced 5–6/10 firmness feel, making it a versatile option for side, back, and combination sleepers who want an all-foam mattress with pressure relief and responsive support.

Nolah Signature Mattress

The Nolah Signature is Nolah’s premium all-foam mattress, designed for enhanced pressure relief, full-body support, and a softer medium feel compared to the Nolah Original.

The Signature features Nolah AirFoam® for cushioning comfort and pressure relief, along with gel and copper-infused foam layers designed to help the mattress sleep cooler. Beneath the comfort layers, Tri-Zone™ Foam provides targeted support, with a firmer feel through the center of the mattress to help keep the hips elevated and the spine aligned, while allowing more flexibility around the shoulders.

At the base, a 6-inch layer of high-density foam gives the mattress durable deep support and structure. The Signature is 12 inches thick overall and has a medium 5/10 firmness feel, making it especially well suited for sleepers who want a pressure-relieving all-foam mattress with a more cushioned, contouring feel.

Nolah Natural Mattress

The Nolah Natural is sort of the odd one out of the Nolah Mattress lineup, because it doesn’t feature any AirFoam in its construction. Instead, it uses a combined 3 inches of natural latex foam as its primary comfort layers and uses an 8-inch-thick layer of zoned support pocketed coils for its support layer.

Nolah Evolution Hybrid mattress

The Nolah Evolution Hybrid is Nolah’s best-selling luxury hybrid mattress, combining high-density comfort foams with a zoned coil support system for pressure relief, spinal alignment, and responsive support.

The mattress is built with an organic cotton cover and quilted foam surface, followed by Nolah’s AirFoam® Luxe comfort layer. This premium foam is designed to provide cushioning pressure relief while maintaining a cooler, more breathable feel than traditional memory foam.

Below the AirFoam® Luxe, the Evolution includes Gel Swirl Foam, EverAdapt Transition Foam, and Tri-Zone™ Foam. These layers help create a smoother transition from the comfort surface into the support system below, while adding targeted support through the center of the mattress.

The support core features Zoned Ascension Coils, which are designed to deliver responsive support and reinforce key areas of the body. A high-density base foam layer completes the construction and gives the mattress a stable foundation.

The Evolution is available in three firmness options: Plush, Luxury Firm, and Firm. Customers can also upgrade to the GlacioTex™ Pillow Top, which adds an extra inch of quilted foam and a cool-to-the-touch GlacioTex™ cover for enhanced cooling and cushioning.

The cover is also made with organic cotton and does have some noticeable cooling factor.

CNET/Jonathan Gomez

Nolah Evolution Comfort+ Mattress

The Nolah Evolution Comfort+ is Nolah’s supportive hybrid mattress designed for plus-size sleepers and customers who want a more durable, reinforced sleep surface.

While it shares the broader luxury-hybrid positioning of the Nolah Evolution, the Comfort+ is built with a stronger support profile for higher weight capacities. Nolah lists the mattress as supporting up to 1,000 pounds across all sizes, making it the most supportive option in the current Nolah mattress lineup.

The Comfort+ combines pressure-relieving foam with a durable coil support system, giving the mattress a balanced medium-firm feel. According to Nolah, most Comfort+ customers rate the firmness around 5–6/10, though the feel can vary based on body weight and sleep position.

At 13 inches tall, the Evolution Comfort+ is designed to offer cushioning comfort without sacrificing deep support, structure, and durability. It is especially suited for side sleepers weighing 250 pounds or more, back sleepers between 170 and 400 pounds, and stomach sleepers up to 200 pounds.

Nolah Mattress Feel 

Nolah Original Mattress

Its AirFoam® comfort layer is designed to cushion pressure points around the shoulders, hips, and back, while the support layers underneath help keep the body lifted and aligned. Compared with traditional memory foam, the Original has a more responsive feel, offering pressure relief without an overly deep, slow-sinking sensation.

Nolah Signature Mattress

The Nolah Signature mattress has a very similar feel to the Original because its construction is almost the same.

The biggest difference between the Signature and the Original comes down to firmness, which we’ll cover later on.

Nolah Natural Mattress

The Nolah Natural mattress is a latex foam hybrid, and latex foam has a very distinctive feel in comparison to other types of foam. It has a spongy quality to it, and it provides lots of cushioning, but you don’t sink into much at all and its super responsive. 

I like to think of it as almost the opposite of a memory foam. Combination sleepers who rotate between sleeping positions might gravitate toward latex foam beds like the Nolah Natural 11.

Nolah Evolution Hybrid & Comfort Plus

Nolah Evolution Hybrid & Comfort Plus Even though both of these higher-end mattresses from Nolah feature a thick layer of AirFoam, neither feel very similar to the Original or the Signature mattresses. The defining feature of these mattresses is the pillow-top and it defines the feel of both.

The fluffy, pillow-top feel found on these beds is very comfortable in my opinion, and I have a hard time imagining that many people would disagree. I would even say the feel of these beds is similar to what you might find at a nice hotel.

Nolah Mattresses Firmness Ratings and Sleeper Types

Nolah Original Mattress

The Nolah Original has a balanced medium feel, around 5–6 out of 10 on the firmness scale. This means it’s an ideal option for side sleepers and for combination sleepers who spend a good portion of the night on their side because it provides a lot of pressure relief.

Nolah Signature Mattress

The Signature mattress is designed to be the most plush mattress offering from Nolah, and our team found it to be around a medium-soft on our scale, which means it will provide even more pressure relief than the Original and be a great option for strict side sleepers.

Nolah Natural Mattress

In general, latex foam hybrid beds like the Nolah Natural tend to be on the firm side of the spectrum, which means they’re not ideal for side sleepers.

This mattress is between a medium and a medium-firm, which means it should be accommodating for all sleeper types, including side sleepers. Petite side sleepers might not get quite enough pressure relief, though, because firmness is always subjective based on a person’s size, but it should work well for most.

Nolah Evolution Hybrid

This is the only mattress available from Nolah that comes in multiple firmness options.

When checking out, you can select the Plush model, the Luxury-Firm model or the Firm model.

The Plush model is around a medium-soft, is noticeably plush and pressure-relieving and a great option for side sleepers.

The Luxury-Firm model is around a flat medium, so it is generally accommodating for combo sleepers and for couples. The Firm model is roughly a medium-firm, so more ideal for back and stomach sleepers looking to sleep on the mattress as opposed to in it.

Nolah Evolution Comfort Plus

In our testing, for an average-size person, we found it to be around a medium-firm on our scale (6-8 out of 10). This firmness makes it a great option for back, stomach and combination sleepers.

However, for a heavier person, it should feel softer than that, probably closer to a flat medium, which would make it a more appropriate option for side sleepers.

You don’t need to be a heavier person to be interested in the Nolah Evolution Comfort Plus, but you’ll have to be OK with a firmer mattress.

Nolah Mattress Performance

Temperature Regulation

All of the Nolah mattresses perform pretty well in the category of temperature regulation, with some being stronger than others. 

If you go to Nolah’s website, they will talk a lot about the cooling nature of the AirFoam used in the majority of its beds. Even though we found that it behaved in a pretty unique way in terms of feel, we didn’t observe it sleeping significantly cooler than most other beds. They shouldn’t really heat up on you at night and stay temperature neutral.

The Nolah Evolution Hybrid and the Nolah Evolution Comfort+ both have covers that are noticeably cool to the touch that should help you sleep a bit cooler at night. They aren’t quite as cool as the beds found on our Best Cooling Beds list, but the cooling factor is noticeable. 

For Couples

If you’re going to be sharing one of these Nolah mattresses with a partner, and you both agree on the firmness and feel of the bed, you’ll want to know about edge support and motion isolation.

The motion isolation is very good on the foam mattresses, and light sleepers who wake up easily shouldn’t have any issues on the Original or the Signature. 

The coil beds don’t perform quite as well, but in our testing, we found them to still be pretty solid. Modern coil beds do a much better job at preventing cross mattress motion than older beds, so I think most folks will be able to sleep through the night and not get woken up by their partner tossing and turning. A certain amount of light sleepers might struggle, however.

Off-Gassing

Oftentimes, when a bed is unboxed, it will have a noticeable odor that takes 24 to 72 hours to dissipate. The bed can also be significantly softer in the first couple days, because it needs a little time to firm up. This is because the beds are packed very tightly in plastic wrapping for at least a few weeks, if not months.

Off-gassing is a longer process for mattresses made entirely of foam layers in comparison to coil beds, so you’ll probably encounter it more on the Nolah Original and the Nolah Signature beds. The Nolah Natural shouldn’t have much of an off-gassing process at all because latex foam is so springy and it uses coils.

Trial Period, Shipping, Warranty & In-Home Setup & Removal

Your shopping experience is important, and this includes stuff like shipping, returns, trial periods and warranties. Nolah actually does some things with its policies we don’t see with other mattress brands.

Nolah did send us these beds for free so we could review them and tell you about them, but if you decide to get one for yourself, you'll start with free bed-in-a-box shipping. This is how the vast majority of beds are delivered these days because it's a very quick and easy process, and the mattress arrives at your door. You do have the option to spend an extra $199 to get in-home setup and mattress removal.

Mattress removal is actually pretty valuable because it can be a real hassle to get rid of an old mattress and can sometimes be costly.

Unboxing

Even for the lighter, all-foam mattresses from Nolah, we would recommend having someone there to help you because it makes the process go a lot more smoothly. You might be able to get away with unboxing them solo, but having done that many times myself, it’s not easy.

The hybrid models, especially the Nolah Natural, will be quite heavy and tough to move, so keep that in mind.

Trial Period

Nolah gives customers an in-home trial period of 120 nights. The trial begins once the mattress is delivered, so make sure you get it unboxed as quickly as you can. Nolah does ask customers to try out any mattress for at least 30 nights before initiating a return because it can take time for your body to adjust to a new bed, no matter how well-suited it is to you and your sleeping preferences.

Unlike most brands, though, Nolah will charge a $99 fee to return a mattress. This is not paid upfront and will be taken out of your refund. For example, if you spent $950 on a queen size Nolah Original mattress, you’ll get $851 back.

This is atypical, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more brands start implementing a similar policy.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this option because a trial period is really important to ensure the bed actually works for you, but it's something we haven’t seen with any other brand.

Warranty

Nolah goes above and beyond the usual 10-year warranty and opts for a “Lifetime” warranty. Like pretty much any warranty that lasts longer than 10 years, this warranty is tiered and offers more protection in the first 10 years in comparison to the years after, but a lifetime warranty does mean that Nolah is really confident in its mattresses.

Final Thoughts

Overall I would say Nolah is an interesting brand that features a unique material that gives some of its beds a feel profile you don’t find elsewhere. There’s also a solid variety of mattress in its lineup so there’s something for everyone, including really nice pillow-top options. 

I would say if you’re interested in Nolah, the Original and the Evolution Hybrid are the most compelling options. For the Original mattress, you have an affordable foam mattress with a unique feel that also has a great firmness profile for side sleepers and many people do favor their side. And the Evolution Hybrid is just super comfortable and supportive with the option to pick and choose your firmness level, and it even has some cooling features for hot sleepers.

Disclaimer: Nolah does not provide medical advice. All resources on the Nolah blog, including this article, are informational only and do not replace professional medical counsel. Talk to your doctor about any health, mental health, or sleep-related issues.