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Today we are going to be taking a look at one of the hottest mattresses on the market right now – the Bear mattress.
The Bear mattress is a very unique product that has been made for the needs of athletes and physically active people. Your body heals the most while it’s sleeping, so ensuring a good night’s sleep after a workout or a competition is essential if you want to keep yourself in tip-top condition.
The Bear mattress does all it can to provide you with a comfortable and supportive night’s sleep in the same way as any other mattress of a decent quality will. What makes it special is that it also has some pretty interesting technologies inside of it which are specifically designed for athletes and recovery. For example, Celliant is one of the latest wonder materials that athletes are going crazy for at the moment due to its healing properties – and it’s been added to the very top layer of this mattress in very generous quantities.
But is the product any good? Has Bear created something that is worthy of the reasonably high price tag it commands? Or is it all one big marketing gimmick?
Today we’re going to find out.
We’re going to be looking at each layer in the Bear mattress in a huge amount of detail to see what it does and what we like (or don’t like) about it. We’re going to answer some frequently asked questions about pricing, warranties, cooling, and sleeping positions before giving you our overall recommendation in our Bear mattress review section.
Let’s get started.
Key Components of a Bear Mattress
This is the most important and most interesting part of the article, it’s here we are going to take a look at the Bear mattress layer by layer to see what you’re getting for your money. We’re going to see what each layer does, how it interacts with other layers, and the qualities of the materials used too.
This is a hybrid mattress that contains 5 different layers of 5 different materials. Mattress manufacturers do this because it allows them to combine the various properties of different materials to create a final product that can benefit from them all.
Breathable Celliant Cover
This is one of the two most interesting layers in this mattress – it’s what has made Bear super famous and turned them into one of the best brands in the business for athletes and people with an active lifestyle.
It’s made from an advanced material called Celliant, which has some pretty interesting properties. It has been designed to absorb body heat throughout the night and then convert it into infrared energy that is direct back towards the sleeper. This is all done naturally without the need of any fancy electronics, it uses various crystals and metals that are imperceptible to the sleeper (so you’re not going to feel them).
The concept behind this process is that because infrared light is a vasodilator it can potentially help athletes recover. Several trials and studies have been done on infrared and the amount of help it can provide athletes during recovery. It’s been proven to increase blood flow and speed up recovery significantly.
Celliant is going through a bit of an explosion in popularity at the moment, and it seems that everything and anything us humans come into contact with is being made from the material – from clothing to bed sheets and everything in between. It’s pretty clever of Bear to use this stuff in their product, it’s almost like a wonder material that makes each and every night spent on their mattress an infrared recovery session.
We want to set expectations realistically here, this isn’t a magic mattress that is going to let you recover fully from a marathon overnight. However, there are noticeable improvements, and the quality of sleep you get from the product alongside the Celliant will get you in tip-top condition quicker than a standard product.
The non-recovery related properties of this cover are pretty impressive too. It’s a super soft cover that feels lovely to the touch. It’s also extremely breathable, which allows any hot air that is trapped inside the mattress to escape with the minimum of resistance – keeping things cooler for longer.
Cooling Graphite Gel Memory Foam
When people first hear about this graphite gel layer they tend to think that it’s a bit of a marketing gimmick that sounds cool but doesn’t actually provide much performance.
That’s not true.
But to fully understand it we’re going to have to take a quick science lesson to learn how memory foam works, and what cooling gels do.
Memory foam wasn’t actually first designed for use in mattresses, instead, it was made by NASA who were researching new materials that would improve the safety of airplane seats. As everything that NASA discovers is released without copyright into the public domain after a while, the mattress industry soon got their hands on it.
When memory foam was first used in products, it immediately changed the mattress world, every product that was worthy of your consideration needed to have some kind of memory foam in it. But people quickly noticed problems with the material – most notably, overheating.
Engineers knew about this before they used memory foam in these first products, the reason it wasn’t solved before they went to market was because it’s actually quite a tricky problem to solve. The awesome magical contouring properties that memory foam products benefit from are derived from the same design feature that makes them overheat.
Inside memory foam, there are countless little cells of air. When you get on the mattress the cells collapse and the foam contours to your body, when you get off the cells snap back to their original size and the mattress regains its original shape.
When body heat enters the mattress throughout the night, it makes its way inside the air inside these cells. Because the cells are completely enclosed, the air cannot escape the mattress – and hot spots form underneath the sleeper making things uncomfortable.
Two ways were devised to combat this, one of which was cooling gel (the other is open cell memory foam).
Cooling gel works on the principle of thermal distribution, which means that it doesn’t actually remove heat – it just spreads it out. Cooling gel is an excellent thermal conductor, and when heat enters the mattress the gel absorbs it and then shares the heat with the rest of the gel in the mattress. This means that the same amount of heat is now inside the product, but it is spread out over a larger surface area – which eliminates hotspots and makes the sleeper feel cooler.
So where does graphite come into this?
Cooling gels can be made from a wide range of different materials, and they have a wide range of different levels of effectiveness. The more conductive the material is, the better it is at cooling the sleeper down…
As you may remember from high school science class, graphite is one of the best thermal conductors on the planet. It will distribute heat extremely quickly and efficiently – it’s even better than some metals. By infusing the cooling gel with graphite, Bear has drastically sped up the already impressive rate of thermal distribution that standard cooling gel provides. It allows the product to benefit from a rapid and even distribution of heat – and hot spots are basically non-existent in this mattress because of it.
Responsive Comfort Foam
This layer suffers from a little bit of marketing speak from Bear in all honesty. They make some pretty grand claims about the performance and properties of this material on their website, but it’s reasonably standard stuff.
This layer is made from a standard (yet high quality) layer of normal comfort foam. It provides a little bit of support and gives the product a little bit of bounce – but that’s true of all comfort foams of a decent quality, not just this one.
Transition Foam
Again, this is another layer that has been made into a much bigger deal than it deserves. It’s a reasonably standard layer of comfort foam that’s not all that different to the layer above. It’s a little bit firmer and its main job is to soften the gradient between the comforting layers above and the firmer base below.
High-Density Support Foam
The bottom layer of this product is the least interesting (as is the case in all mattresses). It’s made from a super strong, super high-density support foam – and while it’s a boring layer, it’s an essential one. This section provides the rest of the mattress with a strong and stable base to rest upon, and without it – the product would really suffer.
Bear Mattress Coupons
Bear release coupon codes from time to time that can be used to provide you with a variety of different discounts and benefits.
They usually release coupons in conjunction with public holidays, and you’ll find them available on the big ones (Christmas, Thanksgiving etc) and the small ones (St Patrick’s day, labor day) too. The coupons are usually money off promotions (at least $100 usually) but sometimes Bear will throw in free gifts or other little “deal sweeteners” instead.
How Much Do Bear Mattresses Cost?
All of the technology and performance we talked about in the construction section above has one significant downside – it’s not cheap. This is a premium product with a premium price tag. Take a look at the full price list below to give you an idea of what you’re looking at paying for the Bear mattress.
- Twin $725
- Twin XL $775
- Full $825
- Queen $925
- King $1,025
- California king $1,025
Bear Mattress Review
Ok, so now we know what the mattress is made from and how much it costs. Let’s take a look at how it performs in our Bear mattress review section.
Support
This is a great mattress in terms of support. The memory foam top layer provides the bulk of the performance here and is an exceptionally high-quality material. The contouring action is deep and cradling, and it contours reasonably quickly (unlike some other lower quality products). The high-quality comfort foam layers below add a little bit of additional support too, but they’re more of a complement to the top layer of memory foam than the other way around.
Price
There’s no getting around the fact that this isn’t a cheap product. Around $1,000 for a queen-sized product is quite steep. However, we think that despite being expensive, it’s still great value for money.
This isn’t a normal mattress made from normal materials. The Celliant technology in the top layer is one of the most advanced materials that has ever been used in the mattress world. It has been designed for a very specific purpose and is going to be used by a very specific kind of person (an athlete) who will benefit from using it massively. If you want the kind of tailored recovery benefits that this mattress provides – you’re going to need to contribute to the development costs of the material by paying a higher price for the product.
That being said, this isn’t a ridiculously priced product, and there are far inferior mattresses on the market that command a similar price tag.
And to be honest, can you really put a price on quicker recovery times while you sleep for the next 10 to 15 years?
Comfort
This a very comfortable bed, it’s kind of the whole point of the mattress. The Celliant in the top cover isn’t what makes you heal quicker – it’s the quality of your sleep. Nothing will heal your body better than your body itself, and the best way to help it do this is to give it a comfortable night’s sleep. You’ll find yourself drifting off from the moment you lie down on this amazing mattress, it’s one of the most comfortable products on the market in our opinion.
Cooling
This is an exceptionally cool sleeping surface that has two main layers inside of it of a very high quality that work in perfect harmony with one another.
The cooling gel in the top layer of memory foam is simply astonishing with how effective and efficient it is at transferring heat. We’re not being hyperbolic when we say it’s one of the best cooling gels on the planet. Hot spots are almost non-existent, and we’d be shocked if we heard of anyone being able to complain about them.
The cooling gel works hand in hand with the Celliant cover and its super breathable nature. Because the heat is now distributed across more of the surface area of the mattress, there’s more air inside in terms of volume that is now being heated up slightly. If this air cannot escape, the mattress is still going to warm up – it’s just going to do it more slowly and evenly. As the cover is breathable, the heat can escape, this problem is solved, and the product stays cool.
Pros And Cons
Pros
- Super breathable cover
- Celliant material
- Speeds up recovery times
- Good value for money
- Great brand with a huge reputation
- Very supportive
- Long lasting materials
Cons
- Could be a little cheaper
Commonly Asked Questions Regarding Bear Mattresses
Do Bear Mattresses Come With A Warranty?
Yes, they do. Bear know that if you’re paying this much for a premium product, you’re going to be expecting premium performance that’s going to stand the test of time.
As standard, every Bear mattress comes with a 10-year “worry free” warranty which will protect you against manufacturing defects. If you notice a problem, you simply call Bear and you’ll speak to someone at their US call center who will dispatch a replacement product (or organize a repair) as soon as possible.
Do Bear Mattresses Sleep Cool Or Hot?
Bear mattresses sleep exceptionally cool. The graphite infused cooling gel top layer is to thank for this mainly. It does a brilliant job of distributing heat out evenly across the entire sleeping surface.
The Celliant covering also has a part to play, and the breathable nature of the material allows any hot air to escape the mattress after it has been spread out by the cooling gel.
How Long Do Bear Mattresses Last?
These are quality products that have been built to stand the test of time. It’s hard to put an exact figure on the amount of time they will last, but we’d be shocked if you got less than 15 years of use out of the product.
The first thing that is likely to degrade on the Bear is the memory foam top layer. Over time memory foam can sag and dip slightly, which reduces the contouring power of the material and makes it much less supportive. This isn’t a problem that is specific to the Bear, it’s a problem with memory foam itself.
However, there are variations in quality of memory foam – it’s not all created equal. This is a premium product made from premium materials, and we’d be shocked if it degraded quickly.
We’re confident that you’re going to get at least a decade of use out of this mattress before you notice any sagging whatsoever.
Are Bear Mattresses Good For Side, Back Or Stomach Sleepers?
Bear mattresses are good for all sleepers, regardless of their sleeping position.
Back sleepers and stomach sleepers are going to be comfortable on this product, but they have the lowest “needs” of any kind of sleeping position – as their spine is naturally straight throughout the night (more or less).
However, side sleepers have a bit more trouble because of the huge amount of pressure that is placed on the hips. In lower quality mattresses the hips can sink in too much (or not enough) which places a curve in the spine that can cause serious joint issues over the long term.
The memory foam in the Bear adapts responsively to the amount of pressure that is applied to the mattress, and as such it promotes proper spinal alignment for side sleepers – giving them support where they need it.
We Recommend Bear Mattresses For People That:
- Are Athletes – This product has been literally custom made for people who live an active lifestyle. If you’re a professional or semi-professional athlete, a gym enthusiast, or just someone that likes to keep fit and healthy – this product is what you’re looking for. It will help you recover quicker than ever with deep, natural, healthy sleep.
- Work On Their Feet – People who have active jobs in construction or warehouses have reasonably similar stresses and recovery needs to athletes. Sleeping on the Bear mattress after a long physically demanding hard day of work is going to leave you waking up fresher than ever with a whole heap of energy ready to start the day.
- Like A Cool Sleeping Surface – The combination of the cooling gel, the graphite infusion, and the breathable nature of the Celliant cover work exceptionally well together. It’s a perfect harmony of materials technology that creates an exceptionally cool sleeping surface that’s going to please even the warmest of sleepers.
- Sleep With A Sleeping Partner Of A Different Size – The motion isolation properties of this product are exceptional. The combination of the memory foam top layer and the motion isolating transition layer means that when one sleeping partner moves throughout the night, the other isn’t going to feel it.
Conclusion
So there you have it, that’s what we think about the Bear mattress.
It’s one of the most advanced products on the market that uses some extremely interesting modern materials and design patterns to provide the levels of performance that it’s well known for.
Quite honestly, if you’re not an athlete or someone that works out a lot, there are probably better products on the market for you at this price point. But if you’re the kind of person that needs to promote recovery from physical activity frequently – you’re going to struggle to find a product that provides you a better bang for your buck.
We love the Bear mattress, and if you think you’re going to benefit from the healing properties it provides – it’s more than worthy of your consideration.
