Casper Essential Review

There are currently over 100 online mattress companies competing for your business. Casper was founded on April 22, 2014, and they have used the past four years innovating and building on their flagship product.

They now offer three quality mattresses, and I recently had the chance to take the Essential model for a spin. The Casper research team in San Francisco created this product to cater toward consumers on a budget who still want to take advantage of the quality materials and processes offered by the growing company.

I think the Casper Essential could be an excellent sleep solution for the kids, and the cost and quality materials make for a great overall value. If this sounds like it could be the solution you’ve been looking for, keep reading our complete Casper Essential buyer’s guide.

The Good

Good motion transfer reduction
Inexpensive
Materials are Oeko-tex certified and Certi-Pur certified
100-night sleep trial
Black cover works well at covering up spills and stains
Good bounce considering the use of memory foam

The Bad

Slept a little hotter than Casper’s other mattress options
Only one firmness option
Low edge support
Not enough support to accommodate those who carry a lot of weight

Our Score

We make it our goal to give you a thorough virtual tour of the each mattress we present. That’s why we examine each product using a variety of criterion to best ensure you don’t overlook anything. In our testing of the Casper Essential mattress, our ratings are as follows:

Comfort
- 8.0
Pain Relief
- 8.75
Edge Support
- 7.0
Durability
- 8.0
Offgassing
- 9.0
Back Sleeping
- 8.5
Side Sleeping
- 8.5
Stomach Sleeping
- 9.0
Warranty and Support
- 9.0
Value
- 9.0

Casper Essential: An Inside Look

You wouldn’t buy a new car without taking a look under the hood. Unfortunately, all too many will dive into a new mattress purchase without taking a close look at what’s under the cover. Before we get into detail about how the Casper Essential mattress feels, let’s discuss the layers you’ll find inside. This helps you get an idea of what you should expect to feel and how the mattress works to offer support and comfort.

The mattress is a total of 8 ½ inches thick including the cover, and this is split up into three layers. Since it’s a hybrid mattress, it incorporates the use of different material types. This allows the sleeper to enjoy the best qualities of each material while negative aspects like excessive sinkage common in traditional memory foam are diluted.

The Comfort Zone

Layers one and two comprise the comfort zone. It starts off with two inches of Bouncy High Airflow OmniFlex Foam on top. This proprietary material was developed by Casper researchers, and it’s designed to offer the sleeper the bounce they need to be able to move around and get in and out of bed easily.

However, you don’t want too much bounce, and the next 1 ½ inch layer of memory foam acts as a buffer to ensure bounce doesn’t overwhelm the mattresses ability to offer proper hug and contour.

The Support Zone

The final layer of the Casper Essential mattress is geared toward offering support. It’s composed of 4 ½ inches of high-density polyurethane. This layer specializes in deep compression support, and it comprises 53% of the combined unit. “High density” means the support layer should hold up over time.

The Cover

The cover of the Essential mattress is different than any other I’ve tried so far, and it’s pretty evident what makes it stand apart. Its dark color is excellent in its ability to hide spills and stains. If you’ve ever bought a new piece of furniture and had that first accident, you know the sinking feeling you get. Not to say you can soil the cover with no notice, but it’s far less conspicuous.

I enjoyed the thinness of the cover. With thicker covers, you can have trouble engaging with the comfort layer. I had no trouble enjoying the memory foam in the second layer, and I think the thin cover has a lot to do with the degree of engagement you get to enjoy. It also makes it possible to place the more reactive foam on top without significantly compromising engagement with the memory foam.

Thorough and Detailed Casper Essential Review

How is Casper able to offer quality materials at such low costs? That’s the true genius of the online business model. You only need to have the product shipped once, and it’s compressed. Retailer markups are eliminated, and the mattress doesn’t have to be stored for months before finally making it into the home of the end user.

The only downside is that you don’t get the opportunity to lie down on the mattress before you buy. However, we can help give you a very good idea of what to expect. In some aspects, we give you a clearer view than you’d receive at a retailer under the guidance of a salesman with a hidden agenda. We use detailed criterion to assess support, comfort, and quality. These include:

Firmness
Comfort
Pain Relief & Support
Heat Retention (how cool the mattress remains)
Off Gassing (the odor the mattress emits)
Intimacy

Firmness

You don’t get an option on firmness, but the Casper Essential is geared to meet the needs of the average shopper with a medium firmness. Based on how it felt, I would say it was just slightly on the firmer end of the medium spectrum, and this can prove to be a good fit for:

People with a BMI between 19 and 28
Stomach sleepers
Those who prefer to feel like they’re floating on their mattress rather than sinking into it

On a scale of 1-10 with one being very soft and 10 being very firm, I’d rate the Casper Essential as a 6.

Comfort

The OmniFlex foam in layer one is proprietary, so I can’t report to you what it’s made of, its density, or it’s indentation load deflection. However, I can tell you that it kind of works like latex in offering that quick reaction you need when you move around. I think Casper did a great job at combining contour and bounce in the first two layers.

Pain Relief and Support

When I sat down on the mattress, I could feel the baseboards beneath me. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend this product if you carry a lot of weight. This product simply doesn’t have the capacity to offer the support you need. This is another reason I think it can be a great option when shopping for kids.

For the right person, the Casper Essential does a good job at providing pressure point relief. This is achieved in the memory foam with great contour, and the base does a good job in offering deep compression support.

Heat Retention

As you drift off to sleep, you ideally want to eventually enter rapid eye movement sleep. In order to accomplish this, however, it’s necessary for the body temperature to drop slightly. That’s why we always take a look at a mattresses ability to transfer heat.

In the case of the Casper Essential, it slept just a little bit hotter than the Wave and flagship mattress. It does have a darker cover, and darker colors are known to retain heat. I didn’t have any significant issues with hot sleeping. Using a sleep tracking device, I was able to measure that I spent 15% of my sleep time in REM sleep, and this is within an acceptable range. If you have serious issues with hot sleeping, I’d recommend the original Casper mattress.

Offgassing

No matter what mattress you buy, you’re going to experience a degree of offgassing. This is especially true considering volatile organic compounds become trapped in the packaging once the mattress is compressed following production.

In the case of the Essential mattress, offgassing only lasted a couple of days. This is about average in my experience, and it didn’t bother me. If you really hate that “new product” smell, I’d suggest letting your mattress air out a day or two before you sleep on it. Leaving the windows open can help.

Intimacy

If you’re looking for a product capable of offering the support necessary for intimacy with your partner, the Casper Essential mattress isn’t going to be your best bet. It’s not very thick, and I can feel my baseboards when I sit down. With the weight of two people confined to a small area, I think you could encounter problems.

For sleep partners, the Casper Wave mattress can be a better fit. It’s about three inches thicker and capable of supporting the weight of sleep partners. Again, the Essential mattress is more suitable for kids, so I think the fact that it doesn’t very well support intimacy could be a good thing!

Sleeping Position Ratings

Some of us sleep in various sleep positions while others have that go-to that helps them get to sleep quickly. Especially if you have a preferences, it’s good to know what to expect in terms of comfort in the three primary sleep positions:

Side
- Medium to soft is the ideal firmness for side sleepers. The Essential mattress is rated as a medium, but it is just slightly on the firmer end of the spectrum. If you’re a dedicated side sleeper, you may fare better with the flagship Casper mattress or other products we’ve tried that are great for side sleeping.. However, the deep compression support did a good job at facilitating side sleeping in my experience
  - Side Sleeping Score: 8.5 / 10
Back
- In order keep the spine properly aligned, back sleepers rely on a product capable of providing adequate contour, and I think the memory foam in layer two did a great job in this regard. Furthermore, back sleeping is better facilitated by a firmer mattress, and the Essential mattress is at a firmness level.
  - Back Sleeping Score: 8.5 / 10
Stomach
- Stomach sleepers also rely on a firmer sleep surface, and this is what you get with the Casper Essential mattress. This helps prevent your face from sinking into the bed and hindering your ability to breathe.
  - Stomach Sleeping Score: 9.0 / 10

Bed Frame Compatibility

When your mattress arrives, we want you to be able to use it immediately. If you’re not ready with the right bed frame, you run the risk of damaging your mattress and increasing the chance of the development of mold. The Casper bed frame is always an a option, and you can also use:

Box springs
Adjustable base
Firm platform base
Slatted base

The general rule of thumb here is, the flatter, the better.

Warranty, Guarantee and Trial Period

Warranty: 10 years
Guarantee: Full money back guarantee for any manufacturing-related issues.
Trial Period: 100 night trial period. If you aren’t satisfied during this time, you can call Casper for a full refund. They will pick up the mattress and either have it recycled or donated.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I’d definitely recommend the Casper Essential mattress if you’re shopping on a budget. It’s the least expensive of the three mattresses this notable company has to offer. I think they did a great job at marrying bounce and contour in the first two layers, and the deep compression support provided in the base layer is adequate for people who weigh less than 120 pounds.

Is the Casper Essential Right for You?

All things considered, is the Casper Essential mattress right for you? It’s our goal to help you reasonably make this determination. I think it could be a good fit if you: