My Green Mattress: Our Complete No-Nonsense Review

Disclosure: I sometimes earn products or commissions from affiliate links or partnerships on my blog. I only recommend products and services I trust to serve you. Learn more.

I hate mattress shopping.

I mean, I hate shopping in general. But mattress shopping is a special kind of hell where half the shops you find are almost *definitely* mafia fronts with shady salesmen. OR you’re online buying foam mattresses in a box that offgas goodness knows what into the air while you sleep.

We had a memory foam bed-in-a-box for nearly 10 years that was okay, but it was at the end of its useful life, and our back pain was off the charts. We knew we needed to replace it with SOMETHING, but what?

Assuming you read the title of this post, you know that we chose a My Green Mattress, but how did we get there? How did we manage to choose from the dizzying array of mattress options out there? And what has the experience been like since we bought it??

In this post, we’re going to explore our criteria for choosing a new mattress, how we ultimately made the decision, and what our experience has been in the months since then.

My goal, as always, is to give you an honest look so you can decide for yourself. After all, a mattress choice is highly personal. Is it right for you?

Let’s find out!

Our Previous Mattress Experience

We have been married for 20 years and have been through two mattresses prior to this one. Our first was a traditional innerspring mattress from The Original Mattress Factory with a box spring, first on a basic metal bed frame and later on our antique family wooden bedframe. It was a floor model that we got at a deep discount. It was too firm for my taste, but as broke college newlyweds, we took what we could get. We made that mattress set last for ten years before getting our second mattress.

The second mattress was a Sealy Cocoon. Why this mattress? Mostly, because it was affordable, Sealy is a known brand, and I didn’t have to go to a store to get it. We bought it in 2016 when we were in the thick of building our cordwood house from scratch. Given that we were pouring every extra cent of money into our build, we didn’t have much to spare for a mattress, but we had gotten desperate, so it needed to be done. It was a pretty good experience, but nearly ten years had taken its toll. There were depressions and body imprints that made sleeping nearly impossible.

It was time for something new.

Our Criteria for a New Mattress

I’m going to break these down further, but in a nutshell, these were the main points I considered for a new mattress:

• Organic and natural materials where possible (GOLS/GOTS certifications as able)
• Affordable (+/- $1000 for an “organic” mattress at the time of publication)
• Medium firmness available
• Generous warranty and company track record of following through on warranty claims
• Good customer service reviews
• Good reviews from longtime users of said mattress in places like Reddit and Mattress Underground

Let’s start the breakdown with the biggest consideration we had: natural materials.

The Problem With Conventional Mattresses: Chemical Exposure

Up to this point, I had never once considered what was IN a mattress, which is crazy considering how naturally-minded we are in other areas of life. After all, we built a house out of natural cedar and avoided as many off-gassing materials as we reasonably could. We prioritize natural fibers in our clothes and less-processed options in our food.

We aren’t purists about it, by any means, but still.

As with most things, looking for a more “natural” mattress was initially my husband’s idea. Not sleeping on foams, plastics, glues, fiberglass, etc. was apparently really important to him, so I set about researching the options.

Many memory foam, hybrid, and conventional mattresses are made with chemical flame retardants, adhesives, and materials like polyurethane, which can offgas volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). You can read more from the Environmental Working Group and Consumer Reports about these substances.

The Other Problem: Landfill Waste

While my husband naturally gravitated towards concern over chemicals, MY initial feelings leaned towards waste. This is a topic I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, and is something I felt lingering guilt over in buying our memory foam mattress.

If I had a mattress made entirely of biodegradable fabrics and recyclable metals, it is quite possible that I could keep the entire thing out of a landfill at the end of its usable life. Springs can be recycled. Natural fibers can be recycled, reused, composted, burned, or otherwise kept out of the landfill.

But a big memory foam mattress? It’s all going into a landfill. And it’s going to sit there for hundreds of years or more. Nothing biodegrades in a landfill.

Financial and Practical Considerations

Beyond the actual construction of the mattress, my biggest considerations were price, warranty, user experiences, and customer service. I’m one of those people who, when confronted with making a big-ticket purchase, will 10000% dive into reading every blog post, Reddit thread, and niche forum post I can find about that item. I will go find customer service reviews on TrustPilot and the BBB. I will Google that purchase into the ground.

Given my search criteria, I narrowed it down to Avocado, My Green Mattress, SweetZzz, Awara, Happsy, and Sleep on Latex. After months of hemming and hawing over every review, I determined that My Green Mattress ticked all of my boxes the most.

And yes, we did buy the mattress ourselves. I know a lot of sponsored posts involve free products, and I have been part of arrangements like that before. But this mattress? Just like with our Berkey, we pulled the trigger with our own money. I HATE spending money, especially this much at once. So when I commit to reviewing a purchase like this, you can be darn sure I’m going to give you my honest take.

My Green Mattress “Kiwi”

As of this writing, My Green Mattress has two main options for regular adult-sized mattresses: Natural Escape and Kiwi.

All of their mattresses are “hybrids”, meaning they contain a base layer of traditional pocketed coil springs with a layer of latex foam and wool on top.

The Natural Escape is their premiere model and is therefore the more expensive of the two, but for good reason. It has a thicker comfort layer and a higher density of pocketed coils throughout the mattress, offering greater comfort and support. This model says it’s a Medium-Firm. It’s a solid option for a wide variety of sleepers.

The Kiwi, on the other hand, is a hair less expensive, owing to a slightly thinner comfort layer and lower spring density. It is rated as a Medium, which I personally was drawn to. I prefer a softer mattress that I can sort of sink into, and my husband likes a bit more support but not tons.

Our memory foam mattress was rated as a Medium and claimed to be around a level 6. The Kiwi would be more similar to that than the more expensive Natural Escape would be, which I found appealing. And I figured if I needed to soften it up a bit, I could always get a wool or latex topper later.

Pros of My Green Mattress Kiwi

Made in the USA

Each mattress is made to order at their GOLS/GOTS organic certified factory in Illinois. I didn’t actually realize how important this would be in my considerations, but knowing that I’m supporting a family-owned business right here in the US that is focused on sustainably-sourced materials and quality craftsmanship had me interested immediately.

Certified Organic Materials

The materials in all mattresses from My Green Mattress have various certifications, including:

• GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard), ensuring that the mattresses are made from organically grown, harvested and processed materials.
• GOLS (Global Organic Latex Standard) for latex 100% harvested from the sap of organic rubber trees.
• GREENGUARD Gold Certificate ensures the mattresses have been rigorously tested for emitting minimal levels of VOCs and other harmful chemicals.
• UL labs formaldehyde-free certification, ensuring mattresses do not emit formaldehyde at levels greater than those occurring naturally in the outdoor environment.
• MadeSafe® certification evaluates and verifies these mattresses to be free from over 6,500 known and potentially hazardous chemicals.

Do I think that all certifications are a panacea? No. But I do think it’s a step in the right direction.

Good Value for the Money

As a balance of material quality vs. cost, My Green Mattress was one of the best values I could find.

We went shopping in-person at a few local stores and were massively underwhelmed. The regular stores had all the trappings of high-pressure sales with sleazy sales associates. And on top of that, all of the mattresses were well north of $1000, often in the $2000-3000 range. And this wasn’t even a luxury store — this was a strip mall closeout store! We did better at Original Mattress Factory (at least they don’t do the whole high-pressure bit), but we’d still be getting a lot of synthetics for the same price as MGM.

365 Night Sleep Trial

Most of the bed-in-a-box companies offer some form of sleep trial, and they almost always come with a laundry list of contingencies that you should satisfy in the event you decide the mattress isn’t for you. MGM isn’t any different in that regard (read their policy here). But two things that stood out to me about their return policy:

First, they prioritize mattress donation over disposal. They’re even keen to let you suggest a worthy charitable organization in your area instead of making you commit to something they choose.

Second, any reviews I found online, especially on Reddit, said it was easy to work with them to get a refund if the mattress wasn’t for them. I read so many nightmare stories about some of the other larger organic mattress companies, but the overwhelming sentiment about My Green Mattress was that they had great customer service and stuck to their word.

Hopefully, we continue to be happy with the mattress we’ve chosen. But if for some reason that changes, I feel pretty confident they could help us make it right.

Cons of My Green Mattress

To be real, I haven’t found too many cons to put here. It’s a really solid mattress from a reputable, family-owned company. Any cons I have are sort of small and nitpicky:

Hard to try before you buy

They DO have a showroom in Illinois, so if you happen to live nearby, you can totally go try it! But if you don’t, you do take a bit of a gamble. It’s the same story for basically every other bed-in-a-box, though.

No handles on the side

A lot of mattresses lack side handles anymore, which can make rotating your mattress a bit unwieldy (especially if you have a King!). Our last mattress didn’t have them either, so I wasn’t too heartbroken about this. Still though…it’d be a little detail that would make regular maintenance a hair easier. I will say, having springs and solidly stitched edges makes it way easier to rotate than our old, wiggly, foam mattress, handles or not!

Not flippable

Hybrid mattresses, like My Green Mattress, have different layers on the top and bottom surfaces, and therefore can’t be flipped over front to back. Again, a lot of mattresses are 1-sided anymore, so this isn’t a deal-breaker for me. But for some, not being able to wear a mattress evenly from front to back is a no-go.

Coils are Zoned

This may actually be a pro, depending on how you feel about it. Both the Kiwi and the Natural Escape tout their 7-zone support system, which varies the firmness of the coils based on what part of the body they are designed to support. This is nice in theory, but every body is differently proportioned and will respond accordingly. I think my 5′ 10″ husband is more comfortable with the location of the support zones than I am at 5’5″. Then again, I don’t know that I notice them all that much, so it’s certainly not a deal-breaker.

Delivery and Unboxing

Not only did we order a new mattress for us, we also got a new foundation and a new Pure Eco Organic Kids twin mattress for our son, so there were a LOT of boxes! The good news is that once our order was ready to ship, it made it to us in about two days. If you live farther from their Illinois factory, it’ll probably take a little longer. Either way, I was impressed with how timely the order was crafted and shipped to us.

Unboxing was easier than expected! Mattresses come compressed in a plastic wrapping to make them compact enough to ship. I started with our son’s twin mattress, using a box cutter to carefully cut into the wrap. It started expanding almost as soon as air breached the seal, so I worked quickly to unroll it. By the time I’d finished, the mattress had expanded to its full size.

I didn’t get to take pictures of unboxing our full-size Kiwi, as my husband and son decided to surprise me with that while I was out. But I DID get pictures of unboxing our son’s twin-size Eco Organic Kids Mattress, and both were equally easy to maneuver. If you have mobility or strength issues, you may want to get someone to help you with this:

With both mattresses, I noticed ZERO off-gassing smells.

I’d read that some folks smelled something, perhaps the wool or the plastic wrap. Back when I unboxed our Sealy Cocoon, there was an intense chemical smell that took several days to dissipate, but I perceived NOTHING like that with My Green Mattress.

MGM also reached its final size and shape almost immediately, whereas our old mattress took a few days to fully fluff out. Perhaps that’s the hybrid nature of My Green Mattress, but being able to sleep on it immediately was a big win.

First Impressions of the My Green Mattress Kiwi

I’d read that some folks were surprised by how firm both the Natural Escape and the Kiwi were at first and that it could take 3-4 weeks to sort of “break in”, so I was prepared. But I have to say that, as someone who loves a plush mattress and who had spent a decade sleeping on memory foam, I was worried right off the bat that I’d made a huge mistake.

It was firmer than I’d anticipated, but not hard. It almost felt like the mattress was actively holding me up. This wasn’t a sensation I was used to, and it made my back feel kind of tight at first.

I found myself saving all kinds of toppers to my shopping lists just in case it didn’t break in like everyone said it would. But sure enough, it did.

Other things I noticed were the quality of the stitching and the edge support. The fabric and stitching quality seem very polished and even. Nothing is frayed. There’s a stitched rib that runs around the perimeter of the mattress, which creates a level of edge support I didn’t realize I was missing.

Turns out our old mattress had NO edge support, to the point that the useful surface area of our mattress was reduced. It feels like we have a bigger mattress now and more room to spread out, even though it’s exactly the same as the old one, just because the edges actually hold us up.

Our Experience After Five Months

At around the 3-4 week mark, I started to notice significantly less discomfort and a little more give. It was still fully supportive with the inner springs, but the wool and latex had finally started to break in nicely.

Now, after several months, I’m no longer looking up toppers so much. In fact, I’ve been sleeping through the night EVERY night for the first time since before I had a child nearly 13 years ago. I’d nearly forgotten what that felt like, and I have to say…it is amazing.

My Green Mattress Pure Eco Organic Kids

Since we were going whole-hog with a natural mattress for us, we figured it was only right to get one for our son as well.

At the time of this writing, he is 12 years old and just over 100 pounds. Prior to this, he had a memory foam mattress from Amazon that was pretty spongy and not supportive. It was something cheap we could transition to after he outgrew his toddler bed, so he’s been sleeping on it for the better part of 8 years.

Right out of the box, my first impression was that this was quite a bit firmer than our Kiwi. I’m not sure I personally would like to sleep on something that firm, but he seemed to really like it right away.

His Experience After Five Months

Kids don’t tend to have the back and joint pain that we adults do, so I wasn’t really expecting to see all that much of a difference in him after sleeping on it for a few months. But our mattresses impact more than body aches.

I don’t think I realized how poorly he must have been sleeping on his old mattress, because when he switched to the MGM it was like a night and day difference. He was sleeping longer, not getting up in the night, and waking up less groggy.

We homeschool, and I have noticed a significant improvement in his ability to think and process during the day. And I don’t mean this casually. He’s a neurodivergent kid, and I usually notice a point every February where it’s like pulling teeth to get him to focus or concentrate in any meaningful way. I always chalked this up to the lack of daylight or something like that, but it recently dawned on me that we just completed our best January and February ever. I mean, he took up learning Logic Gates and took a class on quantum computing, for goodness sake. Call it a win.

I had more energy and less of my typical winter anxiety, and he had more focus and energy. Are new mattresses solely responsible? I’m sure there are other potential factors at play, but better sleep feels like a pretty significant piece to that puzzle.

Who is My Green Mattress best for?

Overall, I feel like My Green Mattress is best for folks who are looking for a natural mattress with quality materials made in the USA at a reasonable price point. It’s also great for those wanting “support” but NOT “hard as a board”. MGM didn’t give me the “sinking in” feeling I’d been looking for, but it DID give me a level of active support that I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

Who is this mattress not best for?

If you want a plush pillowtop sort of mattress without needing a topper, this is definitely not for you. I have a suspicion that most of the other competitor models to this are going to be a similar story, just based on my observations from the bazillion hours of research I did. The only mattresses I’ve found that could market themselves as plush were the pillowtop models I tried out in local stores.

If organic materials are super important to you, My Green Mattress or similar organic mattresses could still be a great bet. Just know that you’ll probably want to order some kind of topper as well.

My Green Mattress does offer an organic latex topper here. I haven’t gotten a chance to try it and haven’t decided if I want to add another comfort layer. While the mattress has broken in nicely, I still sometimes play with the idea of adding something more plush to it. If we get anything, I’ll be sure to report back in.

How to Buy

As with anything I endorse, I always promote buying direct whenever possible. This is especially true for big-ticket items. Buying direct ensures that you’re getting exactly what you pay for, that they have a record of your purchase (in case you need to return or invoke the warranty), and that you can take full advantage of any sales they might have going on.

My Green Mattress runs pretty frequent holiday sales, and outside of that, it seems to run a smaller, more general sale, so you’re likely getting a pretty good deal whenever you actually choose to buy.

Buy directly from My Green Mattress Here

You can also buy through the official My Green Mattress storefront on Amazon. This can come in handy if you happen to have some Amazon gift cards piled up, or want to put it on an Amazon Wedding Registry. Even if no one springs for it, you can always buy it with your completion discount later!

Buy My Green Mattress on Amazon

Interested in more green(er) living? Go down the rabbit hole with me…

• Our complete BOROUX Water Filter Review — is it right for you?
• What happened to Berkey?? Water filter alternatives to try instead
• 13 Zero/Low Waste Items We Use Every Day to Keep Waste to a Minimum
• Going Zero Waste (when no one around you cares)
• 37+ Low and Zero Waste Gift Ideas for EVERY budget (even if you’re broke AF)

Learn more about our original cordwood homestead project here. And be sure to join us on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram for more homesteading goodies that don’t necessarily make it to the blog. Thanks for reading!