Memory foam mattresses are extremely popular today. The reason for this is because manufacturers are always trying to come up with new ways to make mattresses cool us down, feel more comfortable, and cost less. I can’t tell you how many mattresses I have slept on while on vacation and how many of them i’ve wanted to somehow fit into my suitcase because of how comfortable they were. I was able to get my hands on one of the contenders in the memory foam mattress battle, the Lucid 12” mattress. Let’s go check out what other mattresses are up against, shall we?
Video Review
Don’t want to read the full review? Watch our video review instead.
The Lucid Promise
The makers of the Lucid mattress promise a luxury mattress at a price you can afford. I have witnessed expensive mattresses performing terribly and cheaper mattresses performing wonderfully.
Lucid promises a comfortable, breathable mattress that’ll get you through the night without worries.
Presenting The Lucid
The Lucid is a CertiPUR-US Certified memory foam mattress that conforms to the weight, position, and curves of your body. Your weight is distributed evenly to align the spine and diminish pressure points. The Lucid is built with technology developed by NASA that offers its users personalized comfort.
The open cell structure of the Lucid increases breathability to ensure there is no overheating which could result in an uncomfortable body temperature while you are sleeping. Combine breathability with curve-conforming support, which keeps your spine in a neutral position, you have one seriously comfortable mattress for most people.
The Lucid is also built with pressure relief in mind. The memory foam will sink beneath the weight-bearing curves of the person sleeping to help reduce pressure, all while isolating with movement of the person sleeping on the other side of the bed.
My Thoughts About The Box
The second the delivery guy took the box off of the truck, I knew what it was. The outside of the box was plastered with the Lucid name and what was inside of it. It showed the mattress, the size, gave me some information about it, all before I even opened it.
To me, this is good marketing, but on the other hand, anyone who walks by the box is going to know what’s inside. I live in a very secluded area in the mountains of New York, so theft isn’t a huge concern. The only thing that concerns me is that those who live in heavily populated areas may be subjected to it. So, good marketing strategy, but maybe the box should be inside of another plain box? Just my thought.
If you have close or nosy neighbors, or live in an area where crime rates are high, this could be a concern for you. After all, you don’t want everyone knowing all your business, and you don’t want thieves enticed by your property. Of course, I freely admit that I may be a tad bit paranoid or overly concerned.
Inside the box, you’ll find the mattress, rolled and wrapped in plastic, with another label detailing what you’ve ordered. This was nice because it confirmed that there were no mishandling problems at the factory when it was packaged. In addition, the detailed warranty is given, showing you what is covered under the impressive 25 year warranty and what is not. It also tells you how to collect on the warranty if necessary and what Lucid will do to make good on that warranty. It’s a great one-sheet piece that tells you everything you need to know.
Features & Benefits
Buckle up and sit back while I give you all of the details about the features and benefits of the Lucid, including all of the tests I performed.
What Sets It Apart?
The Lucid memory foam is infused with gel beads that help to capture and distribute excess heat. The unique ventilated design increases airflow throughout the special sleep layer and helps to regulate body temperature. Not only that, but it also helps to correctly align the spine, which is ideal for those who may suffer from chronic back pain. Also, the mattress is naturally resistant to allergens and dust mites, so this will definitely help those with allergies.
Construction & Composition
The Lucid is constructed of multiple layers to enhance comfort.
The TENCEL Lyocell cover is plush and moisture wicking. This is the first air layer of the mattress, which helps to keep it ventilated and cool. The moisture wicking feature pulls moisture away from the skin, helping to alleviate sweat and humidity. The cover is washable, but not easy to remove and replace.
This could be extremely beneficial to those who sleep quite hot, as well as those who suffer from night sweats, whether naturally or due to an underlying condition or as a result of a medication. Night sweats can make a bed extremely uncomfortable, and the moisture wicking properties in the TENCEL cover will alleviate a great deal of this problem.
The ventilated gel memory foam is the layer that is infused with gel beads. These gel beads are what prevents overheating, that and the fact that it’s ventilated. This layer is made from a resilient foam that prevents lasting body impressions. It’s also made with open cell technology that allows air to flow through.
The bamboo layer is just an added support layer. This adds to the other layers and helps to keep your spine aligned. You won’t notice this layer since it’s sandwiched in between the main layer and the foam base.
Lastly, the foam base. This is the support for all of the other layers, if this layer fails, so do the rest. This is why it has a 4 pound density, it’s also the largest layer out of all of them. All of these layers added up make for a medium feel mattress.
Comfort
Let me start by saying that, if you don’t like a firm mattress, or if you prefer a very plush mattress, the Lucid is not for you. It rates pretty high on the firmness scale, so consider this prior to deciding if you want to invest in it.
I have two different perspectives on this topic. I would like to address them separately.
Husband’s Perspective
My husband has a completely different level of comfort than I do. Many times, we agree on the comfort of a mattress, but not with the Lucid. He thought that it was comfortable, a little too firm for him, but still generally comfortable. He slept through the night for about the first week and then after that, he was ready to throw in the white flag. He was unable to find a comfortable spot and just wasn’t having it. But, for the sake of the test, I made him sleep on it longer. He complained for the next few weeks that it just wasn’t his cup of tea.
My Perspective
This mattress is definitely made more for back and side sleepers, not stomach sleepers. I am going to be completely open and honest here, i’m on the bustier side, and this mattress just didn’t do justice for the girls. It was virtually impossible to sleep on my stomach. If I was on my back or my side, I was quite comfortable, but it was still a little firm for my preference. I gave this mattress quite a lot of time to break in, too. It just wasn’t working out for me.
So, based on my experience, the Lucid would probably be more comfortable for those who sleep on their sides or back, even the stomach for men. If you’ve been blessed in the chest, I don’t think you’ll be comfortable if you’re a stomach sleeper as well.
Support
This is where my husband and I agree on the support of the Lucid. For us, it’s important that our bodies are well supported as we sleep. He’s a contractor and he puts his back through torture throughout the day. I’m a mother of 4 who is constantly bending, lifting, squatting, and on-the-go. By the end of the day, our backs are on fire.
When we slept on the Lucid, we did seem to see a decline in back pain each morning. When we laid down on it, we felt like our bodies were clicking back into place. For me, it was only if I was on my back, for him, it was any position.
Overall, it’s very supportive and seems to do what it’s suppose to do when it comes to alleviating back pain and putting the spine in the proper position spine in the proper position.
Again, part of the problem arises with the way you’re built. If you’re particularly busty, you won’t get the right alignment on your stomach, and if you have very wide hips, you might not find the pressure point relief here you’d like sleeping on your side. For men, extremely wide shoulders could lead to some discomfort rather than proper alignment when you sleep on your side. But these are the problems you’ll face with most mattresses, even those like the Lucid, which are made specifically for pressure point relief. For the average person, the support is pretty ideal.
Edge Support
I cannot stand a mattress that doesn’t have edge support. Nothing is worse than falling onto the floor because you got just a little too close to the edge and it gave way. I didn’t have that problem. Yes, there was some slack to the edge support, but nothing drastic like I have seen in a few other mattresses I have tested.
Overall, there is pretty good edge support with the Lucid. My husband sits on the edge of the bed a lot to put his socks on and seemed to sit there just fine without the edge of it giving. He was quite impressed with the way the mattress performed.
Motion Isolation
When I’m sleeping, or trying to for that matter, the last thing I want to feel is my husband rolling around on the other side. Bad enough he moves his feet to get comfortable, but he also moves quite a bit. I can honestly say that the mattress performed well in this area. I didn’t feel any kind of movement coming from his side. With California King beds, it’s tough to feel movement anyway if you’re on completely different sides, but when we did sleep relatively close to each other, we still barely felt movement.
If you check out my video, you can see that there was little movement from the wine glass as the bowling ball was dropped quite close to it. Imagine what movement would be like if there were feet of distance instead of inches.
Temperature Regulation Features
Have you ever laid in bed at night thinking to yourself that it was way too hot in the bed and that you wished it would cool you down? Well, with the Lucid, you won’t have this issue. My husband and I are very warm sleepers. For us, it is tough to find a mattress that will keep us cool.
The Lucid has those gel beads inside of the ventilated open cell memory foam layer. These beads are meant to keep you cool, which in my opinion, they did. I wasn’t finding myself sweating or overheating, neither was my husband. The other layer, the small bamboo layer, is also ventilated so that the air isn’t getting trapped elsewhere in the mattress. I believe this is a huge helper when it comes to regulating temperature.
I have seen mattresses that claim they keep body temperature regulated, but a lot of them failed my heat retention test. Did the temperature regulation features live up to their promise? Let’s see.
Heat Retention
This is by far the most important test I do with my mattresses. This test proves whether or not the temperature regulation features live up to their promise. When I do my test, I take my heating sock and warm it up. I will then place it on a designated area on the mattress until that spot is heated up to 130 degrees roughly. I will then place my temperature gun on the spot and time how long it takes to get from 130 degrees to around 98 degrees.
So how did it do? It took 18 seconds for the mattress to cool down, which is pretty great. I have seen mattresses take almost a minute to cool down. This means the mattress is definitely breathable and confirms the validity of the temperature regulation features.
Smell
I have come across mattresses that took weeks to not smell anymore. I am not a fan of stinky mattresses, mostly because I can’t sleep on them right away. There’s nothing worse than not being able to sleep on a comfortable mattress that’s calling your name.
As far as the Lucid goes, there wasn’t really an odor. It was more of a “new mattress” smell. It went away after a day or so. The mattress gets an A+ in my book for this feature.
Durability & Quality of Construction
When I set up all of my new mattresses, I like to take a look at them thoroughly. I look for ripped seams, loose threads, pulls in the thread, zipper construction, and the quality of the foam inside. For the Lucid, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. It seemed to be well constructed and the cover held up in the washer and dryer multiple times.
I would be careful when removing and replacing the cover. While the zipper and seams are pretty well reinforced, it is a tight fit, and you have to do some pulling and stretching, which could pop the seams or compromise the integrity of the zipper. Other than this, I don’t see anything that concerns me about the entire construction of the mattress.
Consumer Feedback
Here is what some other users, besides myself and my husband, thought about Lucid.
Durability & Quality of Construction
- Constructed nicely
- Nice looking cover
- Complaints of not being true to size
- Some issues with indentations
Support
- Very supportive for the back
- Break In Period
- A week or more
Pain Relief
- Complaints of hip and lower back pain
- Others saw a reduction in spinal pain
Comfort
- Comfortable for back sleepers
- All around comfortable for most
Who Is The Lucid For?
If you fall into any of these descriptions, the Ludic may be the right fit for you.
Do you want to keep cool?
As I mentioned above, this mattress does have quite the quick cooling speed. This is the ideal mattress for anyone who is looking to keep their body temperatures regulated while they are sleeping.
Need that solid warranty?
If you are one of those people who always seem to need to use a warranty, whether it is or isn’t any fault of your own, this is a good option for you. This mattress comes with a 25 year warranty, which is great for those who think they would need to use it.
Luxury on a budget?
If you want a luxurious feeling mattress at relatively low price, the Lucid is where it’s at. It’s extremely affordable for all of the features you are getting with it. Most of the mattresses we have tested have been around the $1000 mark, whereas this one is around the $500 mark.
Are you a sufferer of back pain?
This mattress is specifically meant to realign the spine and reduce the back pain that you may be experiencing. This is in no way a cure for chronic back pain, but it may help alleviate some of the symptoms.
Conclusion
Overall, this is a nice mattress for back or side sleepers, even stomach sleepers if it remains comfortable for you. It does have a good amount of support and it’s definitely breathable, which is one of my favorite parts of it. I do recommend it for those who have back pain as well. It may not be a permanent solution, but it will help to calm some of the symptoms.
The only thing that I can say I did not like about the mattress is the fact that the cover is such a pain to take off and put back on. You have to lift the mattress to unzip it from the bottom and when you are trying to put it back on, you have to do the same thing. The mattress is really heavy too, which makes it that much worse. Other than that, everything else about it is nice.
The Lucid Specs
| Material | Degassing Period | Firmness Level | Shipping Weight | Trial Period | Warranty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gel memory foam | 24-48 Hours | 7 | 83 Pounds | None | 25 Years |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a foundation needed?
It is highly recommended that you use a sturdy frame with a flat platform. You don’t need to use a box spring either, as long as the frame or base provides equal support for the mattress.
Is a mattress protector needed?
If you want to protect your investment, a waterproof mattress protector is highly recommended. It will also keep your warranty valid.
Does it work on adjustable beds?
Indeed it does!
Is there a warranty?
There is a 25 year warranty that comes with your Lucid mattress.
Is there a trial?
Unfortunately, no. It’s not often you see a mattress come without a trial period these days, especially with the ‘bed in a box’ style mattresses. This is probably my only concern with this particular mattress, since you may find it too firm. But for the most part, I think anyone who orders the Lucid mattress is going to be pleased, so this won’t be an issue.
Do you need to rotate the mattress?
It is recommended that you rotate the mattress 180 degrees from head to foot periodically.
Is there offgassing?
Moderate.
What's the level of firmness?
Firm.