Nectar Hybrid Mattress Review
Offering the best of both springs and memory foam
Verdict
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress uses both memory foam and springs to ensure a soft yet supportive design for comfortable sleeping, while also seeing excellent heat dissipation to prevent you from feeling toasty. A generous trial period is the cherry on top, making this one of the best value mattresses we’ve tested.
Pros
- Great value for money
- Soft, comfortable and supportive
- Superb heat dissipation
- Generous trial and warranty
Cons
- Cover is not mashine-washable
- Sub-par edge support
Key Features
- Hybrid designFeatures both memory foam and springs to reap the benefits of both types of mattresses.
- 365-day trialNectar offers a full 365-day trial, so you can refund the cost if you’re happy within a year.
- Forever WarrantyNectar will replace or repair a fauly mattress no matter how long you have owned it for.
Introduction
When buying a mattress, the first question you generally need to ask yourself is whether you want pocket springs or memory foam, but the Nectar Hybrid Mattress offers the best of both worlds.
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress is made up of six different layers, four of which are made of memory foam to help establish that soft conforming feel. But importantly, there are also 1600 micro-springs to improve airflow and provide a little more bounce.
So, can the Nectar Hybrid Mattress truly deliver the best qualities of both spring and memory foam mattresses? I’ve spent the last 12 months with the Nectar Hybrid Mattress, so here are my thoughts.
Sizes and trial period
- Virtually every UK size available
- Unrivalled 365-night trial
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress is available in virtually any UK size, including Single (90x190cm), Small Double (120x190cm), Double (135x190cm), King (150x200cm) and Super King (180x200cm). The only missing size here is a Small Single, which is often used for children’s beds.
Nectar offers a fantastic 365-night trial, allowing you an entire year to decide whether you want to refund the mattress. No other company comes close to offering such a long trial, with Simba offering 200 nights instead.
There’s also a ‘Forever Warranty’, with Nectar promising to repair or replace a faulty mattress no matter how many years you’ve owned it for. It’s remarkably generous, and may be reason enough alone to purchase if you’re sensitive about the feel of a mattress.
Design and Layers
- Arrives vacuum-packed in a box
- 6-layer design with both memory foam and micro-springs
- 100% carbon neutral, according to Nectar
As with the competition, the Nectar Hybrid Mattress is vacuum packed, so comes in a box that looks impossibly small to hold a double mattress. Once the plastic has been cut open, the mattress needed several hours to inflate to the correct size. Nectar recommends a 24- to 72-hour wait, although the mattress isn’t at risk of damage if you are impatient to hop on. As with most memory foam mattresses, there was a whiff of a strange smell during this process, due to off-gassing, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it unpleasant.
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress is made up of six layers: a quilted cooling cover, dynamic support layer, micro-spring layer, pressure-relieving memory foam, 7-zone supportive base and a positioning base material. Despite all of these layers, Nectar has impressively kept it to a fairly compact thickness of just 25cm – that means it’s just 1cm thicker than the more conventional Emma Original memory foam mattress.
I did find the Nectar Hybrid Mattress to be fairly heavy to manoeuvre into my bedroom, with my double size weighing as much as 32kg, compared to the 25kg Emma Original.
Given the specific order of layers, it’s important that you don’t flip the mattress over, otherwise you risk damaging it. Nectar does suggest turning the mattress around every two to three months, which will prevent sagging.
A zip encircles the top rim of the mattress, allowing you to remove the top layer and have a peek of all the layers inside. Frustratingly, the top layer isn’t machine washable, so you certainly won’t want to stain the mattress. Removing the cover will even void the warranty, and so is not recommended. Instead, Nectar suggests using a mattress protector instead.
Nectar claims its Hybrid Mattress is 100% carbon neutral, a feat that rivals Emma and Simba can’t match. Nectar also says it has avoided using any harmful dyes or ozone-depleting chemicals, which are common in the production of memory foam mattresses. And finally, Nectar says all the cardboard packaging has been sourced from sustainable forests. All in all, it’s a great sustainability effort from Nectar.
Comfort and Support
- Memory foam layer conforms to your body
- Firm and supportive when you’re laid down
- Minimal movement to disturb partner
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress is classed as a 6 to 6.5 (out of 10) on the firmness scale, so is slightly more firm than it is soft. However, that doesn’t paint the whole picture.
To test each mattress we review, we make sure to measure how much the mattress dips in specific situations. For example, when I’m sitting on the edge of the Nectar Hybrid Mattress, I measured a dip of 8cm. That’s quite a big dip compared to other mattresses, with the Emma Original Mattress dipping by just 6cm in the same test.
When sitting up in bed, the mattress dipped by 6cm instead, which matches the same result of the Emma Original Mattress. Such results indicate that the Nectar Hybrid Mattress is soft, especially compared to the likes of the firmer Emma Premium Mattress.
After sleeping on the mattress for over a year, I can also confirm that the memory foam design of the Nectar Hybrid Mattress will conform to your body over time. This can help to relieve common pressure points, and is especially comfortable for side sleepers.
Despite the Nectar Hybrid Mattress offering similar qualities to a conventional foam mattress, I never found it to be overly soft. In fact, because of the multi-layered design and addition of springs, the mattress prevents your entire body from sinking into foam.
When sleeping on my side, the Nectar Hybrid Mattress only dipped by 3cm underneath my shoulders, and 3.5cm underneath my hips, giving me good spine alignment. And when sleeping on my back, I measured a dip of 2cm underneath my shoulders and 3cm underneath my hips, keeping my spine straight.
These results are very similar to the Emma Premium Mattress, suggesting that the Nectar Hybrid Mattress can competently support my weight when evenly spread – the mattress only saw major dips when weight was applied to one specific point. This helps the mattress strike a great balance between being soft and firm, which I found to be very comfortable.
Nectar says it has designed the Hybrid mattress to minimise motion transfer, which is not only important to stop you disturbing your snoozing partner, but also to prevent you losing balance and spilling a drink. I used an accelerometer to put these claims to the test, and the results were a mixed bag.
The above graph shows the recorded motion of the bed as I climbed in, which shows that a fair amount of movement was transferred from one side of the bed to the other.
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress fared better in my ‘rolling over’ test, keeping motion disturbance to a partner at a minimum, although didn’t perform quite as well as the Simba Hybrid Pro – although that’s to be expected since the Simba is a lot more expensive.
Heat
- Better heat dissipation than most memory foam mattresses
- Took six minutes for body heat to disappear
One of the biggest drawbacks of foam memory mattress is that they trap in your body heat, and so can become uncomfortably warm to lie on during summer nights. However, Nectar claims the Hybrid Mattress has been designed to maximise airflow and dispel heat.
In order to test that claim, I lay down on the Nectar Hybrid Mattress for 10 minutes, and then took photos using a thermal camera in one-minute intervals to check how long it would take for the heat to be dispelled.
As you can see in the image gallery above, my body heat was hardly visible at the 5th minute mark. And after just one minute of getting off the mattress, the temperature had already dropped from 34.5°C to 32.1°C. This proves that the Nectar Hybrid Mattress has excellent heat dissipation.
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Should you buy it?
You want the best qualities of both memory foam and springs
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress feels soft and comfortable, yet is also firm enough to support your body to maximise comfort. It’s also great at expelling heat and will conform to your body to relieve pressure points.
You want a machine-washable cover
It’s a pain that the top cover isn’t machine-washable, while removing the top layer will frustratingly void the warranty. If this is a big issue for you, I recommend the Emma Original Mattress instead.
Final Thoughts
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress is an excellent mattress, offering the key benefits of both memory foam and springs. It’s comfortable and soft, with the foam conforming to your body over time, but is also firm enough to offer great support with superb heat dissipation.
Beyond the mattress itself, Nectar is also offering a generous 365-night trial, as well as an unlimited warranty period. And while a Double size Nectar Hybrid Mattress was initially expensive at £1499, it has since dropped down to a far more affordable £600, making it one of the best value mattresses we’ve reviewed for a long time.
The Nectar Hybrid Mattress isn’t perfect, though. Edge support could be better, and I’ve found myself almost rolling off the mattress due to dipping at the sides. It’s also a shame that the cover isn’t machine-washable, making it a pain to clean. The Emma Original Mattress is a good alternative if those flaws are a dealbreaker. Otherwise, it’s also worth checking out our Best Mattress guide.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every mattress we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main mattress for the review period
We use a thermal camera to see how quickly the mattress can dissipate heat for a comfortable night’s sleep.
We measure how far we sink into the mattress in various positions to measure support levels.
We use an accelerometer to measure how movement from one person is transferred to the other side of the bed.
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FAQs
Hybrid mattresses tend to be more expensive, and can also be very heavy. We found the Nectar Hybrid Mattress to offer great value, but it was difficult to move due to its heft.
Nectar claims the mattress should last between 8 to 10 years.
The Nectar Hybrid has a layer of micro-springs, with up to 1600 individual springs.
Trusted Reviews test data
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
