GhostBed Luxe mattress review

GhostBed Luxe mattress review in brief

All-foam mattress aren't typically known to be good cooling mattresses as heat tends to get trapped in dense foams. But the GhostBed Luxe goes against the grain, employing specialist cooling technology to bring hot side sleepers their dream, cushioning bed.

Where the GhostBed Luxe stands out is in motion isolation (take note restless couples), edge support, and cooling technology. Through multiple tests, we found that movement of a partner is almost imperceptible and that the sides of the mattress hold up well when getting in and out of bed. The shining star is the cooling technology that not only makes the top cover cool to the touch but absorbs heat throughout the night and away from the body. Hence, we think the GhostBed Luxe is amongst the best cooling mattresses you can buy online right now.

GhostBed rates this mattress between a five and a six on a 10-point firmness scale, but in our opinion, it’s closer to six. The top cover is quite plush, creating a cloud-like sleep experience. While the base is fairly supportive, it’s softer than firm when it comes to supporting the hips, which means it's probably not going to be the best mattress for you if you tend to lie on your front or back. It is, however, one of the best mattresses for side sleepers.

For the price, we were surprised that the mattress wasn’t made of more sustainable materials and that it had a strong and lingering off-gassing smell. If we had to guess, the regular price is probably reflective of GhostBed's patented cooling technology which is outstanding among mattresses. However, there are very regular GhostBed mattress sales that take the price right down to one that feels more appropriate for what you're getting.

GhostBed Luxe mattress review: price and deals

• The brand’s second most expensive mattress
• More expensive than other upscale mattresses with cooling properties
• Currently half-off the price at multiple outlets

First things first, GhostBed Luxe is considered a luxury mattress for sleepers who are looking to invest in their sleep. The brand say a queen costs $3,866 at MSRP, but thankfully you can ignore this price as in all our years of mattress testing, we've never actually seen it sell for that. Here are the usual sale prices of all seven sizes of the GhostBed Luxe foam mattress:

• Twin: $1,349
• Twin XL: $1,399
• Full: $1,449
• Queen: $1,499
• King: $1,899
• Cal king: $1,949
• Split king: $2,798

This mattress is also available from a number of third-party retailers, such as Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Amazon, all with similar discounts. As a rule of thumb, if the pricing is the same we'd always recommend buying direct from the brand, to make aftercare more straightforward. Our price widgets will pull in the best prices from a range of trusted retailers.

Even at half off, the GhostBed Luxe is still more expensive than some of the best budget mattress brands, as well as mid-range options like the DreamCloud Premier Hybrid Mattress, Tuft & Needle Mint Mattress, and Saatva Classic mattress. For the price, we’d expect the GhostBed Luxe mattress to offer a lifetime warranty rather than a 25-year warranty and have more sustainable materials and certifications, such as those found with the PlushBeds Botanical Bliss Organic Latex mattress. If you're shopping on a smaller budget, consider the Cocoon by Sealy Chill mattress. Read our full GhostBed Luxe vs Cocoon by Sealy Chill comparison piece to find out which suits you best.

For the premium price, you’ll be glad to know that GhostBed offers a 101-night sleep trial that goes into effect after you’ve slept on the mattress for 30 days. Unfortunately, the limited warranty only covers 25 years, and between the 11-25th year, GhostBed determines whether or not to repair the mattress, and if they do, they’ll charge owners a handling fee or offer a new mattress at a prorated rate.

GhostBed Luxe mattress: twin from $1,349 at GhostBed
The GhostBed Luxe mattress has been heavily discounted for quite some time with no expected end date for the sale (see how this compares to what other brands offer in our mattress deals and sales roundup). Plus you can save an extra 10% off sitewide if you're willing to sign up to marketing emails.

View Deal

GhostBed Luxe mattress review: materials

Seven layers comprise the GhostBed Luxe mattress. The first three layers – a half-inch Ghost Ice Fabric Cover, one inches of gel memory foam, and a bit of cooling fiber – come together to form the quilted cover. The next layer is the patented Ghost Ice cooling technology meant to absorb and disperse body heat, followed by two inches of gel memory foam. A two-inch bounce foam layer and a 7.5-inch-high density base foam make up the last layers.

GhostBed Luxe mattress review: firmness and comfort

• A medium-plush mattress with a 6 out of 10 rating
• Top layer has a slight cloud-like give
• Provides a soft and supportive feel

At first, the GhostBed Luxe mattress felt incredibly soft, but the longer we laid on it, the more we realized that the layers beneath the quilted cover provided a significant amount of support. In the end, we decided the mattress was more like a 6 rather than a 5 on a 10-point firmness scale.

There is a soft give to the top layer that creates a hug or cloud-like experience. It’s this design aspect that made sleeping on our side. If it had been slightly firmer, the mattress could have probably supported our hips better and prevented discomfort when trying to sleep on our back.

It only took a few days for our body to adjust to the mattress’ design. Throughout our testing, we slept deep and contently as long as we fell asleep on our side.

GhostBed Luxe mattress review: performance

• Motion isolation is fantastic
• Ghost Ice cover is cool to the touch
• Superb edge support

We slept on a king size GhostBed Luxe mattress for three weeks, making sure to test it for a wide range of features like pressure relief, motion isolation, edge support, and set up. With GhostBed's claim that it’s the 'Coolest Bed in the World', we paid particular attention to its cooling capabilities. From the onset, the materials and construction seemed standard, though perhaps more upscale than luxurious.

Setup

The king-sized mattress arrived in box on the front porch. Although the mattress itself weighs 150 lb, we were able to move the mattress inside the house and to our bedroom without assistance.

After removing the mattress from the plastic wrapping, it was placed directly on our platform bed and allowed to inflate overnight. According to the instructions, the bed can be placed on a box spring, platform bed, or wood foundation and be slept on immediately though it may take up to 24 hours to recover from its compressed state. Our mattress rose to full height in a few hours.

Score: 5 out of 5

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Off-gassing

The GhostBed Luxe is a CertiPUR-US certified mattress which means it’s free of phthalates, ozone depleters, mercury, lead, heavy metals, formaldehyde, and PBDE flame retardants. Yet, it had a bothersome off-gassing smell best described as sweet, cloying almonds that lasted throughout the two-week testing period (although it seemed to be less pungent toward the end of the testing period).

We tried to sleep on the mattress for the first night, but the smell was so overwhelming it gave us a headache, so we let it sit overnight. It should be noted that we did not have a mattress protector on the mattress. This is the first time that our reviewer has ever noticed an off-gassing smell among any of the seven mattresses she has tested.

Score: 2 out of 5

Pressure relief

The mattress is best described as medium-plush, which means its soft but offers a surprising amount of support. It’s about a 6 out of 10 on the firmness scale, which we determined based on our own experience and placing a 12.5lb dumbbell in the center of the mattress. It sunk about half an inch.

We tested this mattress in various sleep positions and found that when sleeping on our side, we were most comfortable and aligned. During the night, we ended up on our stomach.

The mattress does not seem to support the hips as well as it did our shoulders, knees, and other parts of our body, which is why we never felt comfortable sleeping on our back. When we tried to sleep on our back, it caused our backside to sink and our lower back to ache.

The Tuft & Needle Original Mattress and the PlushBeds Botanical Bliss Organic Latex mattress did better at addressing pressure points, aches, and strains.

Score: 4 out of 5

Motion transfer

Although we tested the motion transfer of the GhostBed Luxe with a friend and found it particularly excellent, we thought it best to conduct an experiment to verify our initial thoughts. We placed a wine glass in the center of the mattress and dropped a 12.5-lb dumbbell within four, 10, and 25 inches away to see if the wine glass would topple or shake.

In all three instances, the wine glass never fell, and it only slightly shook (but didn’t threaten to topple) when the dumbbell was dropped 4 inches away. Among the mattresses our reviewer has tested, the GhostBed Luxe is in the top percentile for motion transfer making it a great option for those with fidgeting partners.

Score: 5 out of 5

Temperature regulation

The temperature regulation of this mattress is very impressive, and we can see why it’s called the 'Coolest Bed in the World' (though we can’t verify that claim). When we touched the quilted Ghost Ice Cover, it was cold to the touch, which is not a feature we’ve experienced with prior mattresses.

GhostBed Luxe’s cooling technology (namely graphite foam and premium cooling fibers) is designed so that it pulls the heat that a sleeper’s body transfers to the quilted cover, down before dispersing it away from the body. To test this out, we slept on the mattress with microfiber sheets and a linen duvet filled with a heavy comforter. We set the temperature in our home to 78-80 degrees, but since the nights were growing cooler, the house temperature remained about 75-77 degrees through the night.

We never felt overheated or even warm when sleeping on the mattress. The airflow was terrific, and our temperature remained comfortable and cool. In fact, there were a few times we had to put on socks and pants because our legs and feet grew cold.

Score: 5 out of 5

Edge support

We used a 12.5-lb. dumbbell to test the edge support of the mattress. Because the Ghost Ice cover has memory foam, the dumbbell sunk only about half an inch, and yet it didn’t really change the 13-inch height of the mattress.

Sitting along the edge, we found it to be very supportive. Getting in and out of bed was easy and when we slept near the edge of the mattress, we never felt like our arms or legs were slipping off or weighing the mattress down. Overall, the edge support of the GhostBed Luxe was fantastic, perhaps even more so than some of the mattresses we’ve tested in the past.

Score: 5 out of 5

Durability

By the end of the testing period, the mattress looked to be in good shape and for the most part, appeared durable. We did notice that by the end of the testing period the exterior cover was still loose and could bunch together at the top or along the edges of the bed where it met the frame.

Based on our experience reviewing other mattresses, we don’t believe that this mattress will last a lifetime, which makes sense when you consider that GhostBed only offers a 25-year warranty (to be clear, here's how often you should change your mattress anyway). The other thing that concerns us is how GhostBed informs buyers that the firmness of the mattress is affected by bedroom temperature; it may firm up in the winter and soften in the summer.

This change in the firmness could affect the durability of the materials. GhostBed suggests that buyers always keep their bedroom between 65-75 degrees but that may be hard for some buyers depending on where they live, weather changes, price of gas or electricity, etc. This is the first warning of its type we’ve ever seen on a mattress.

GhostBed Luxe mattress review: customer reviews

Over 6,300 reviews are available on the GhostBed website, Target, Amazon and Home Depot. Combined, they have an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Among reviewers, the pros and cons are a mix. What we could surmise is that sleepers range in their opinion of the firmness. Some think it’s firmer than expected and others think it's too soft (firmness is subjective, after all).

The same can be said for the cooling technology. While an overwhelming number of reviewers found the cooling technology to work wonderfully, a select number of reviewers claim that the cooling properties and airflow was not as advertised.

Some guests also noted issues with the slick top layer causing sheets to slide off. Though the easy setup and quality materials contribute to a positive purchasing experience.

Should you buy the GhostBed Luxe mattress?

The GhostBed Luxe mattress is primarily suited to couples, side sleepers, and those who need a cool and airy bed. It passed our motion transfer test with flying colors, is physically cool to the touch, and regulates temperature at night. Although it’s advertised as beneficial for back sleepers, it doesn’t seem to provide enough firmness to support the hips.

We had a difficult time with the off-gassing smell and did not like the idea that the bed’s firmness would change depending on the bedroom temperature. The pricing is reflective of the patented cooling technology, but it’s considerably high when comparing the quality and construction of other luxury mattress brands.

We can understand why a mattress like the PlushBeds Botanical Bliss Organic Latex Mattress is expensive – the materials are all organic, sustainable, and acquired through responsible business practices. Plus, it has a lifetime warranty. We’ve even tested less expensive mattresses like the Tuft & Needle Classic and the Amerisleep AS3 and found them more comfortable and made with better materials. The difference really lies in the GhostBed Luxe’s cooling properties – which we’ve admitted – is impressive.

To sum it up, the GhostBed Luxe is a great buy for side sleepers and those whose biggest concern is getting hot at night. Just make sure to take advantage of a sale when purchasing this mattress.

GhostBed Luxe Mattress: Alternatives