A Word on Our Sponsors: My Casper Mattress Experience

A Word from Our Podcasts is going to be a limited–probably very limited–set of reviews in which I discuss my experience with a company known for advertising on podcasts. These posts are not sponsored. I paid the company for their product, not the other way around, and I definitely have not gotten any of these products for free. I have a tendency to buy just about anything if it’s a sponsor of something I love. For instance, the first vodka I ever had was Grey Goose because someone else was buying and they sponsored NPR. This, of course, ruined most other vodka for me forever. While this isn’t always great for my wallet, it has led me to some pretty great products.

Almost exactly one year ago (9/26/2016), my husband and I finally got sick of our awful mattress and bought a Casper. This wasn’t without a good amount of research, though; we were broke at the time, trying not to make any big purchases before we moved, and wanted something that we could use for a long time. We looked into Tuft and Needle mattresses, as well as Purple, but all in all, the Casper sounded like the best fit for us–and besides, you didn’t hear about Tuft and Needle or Purple sponsoring podcasts.

We placed our order using the code for Within the Wires, but we’d originally intended to use the code for Myths and Legends; while I’m a fan of Within the Wires, it was never really up my husband’s alley, so we wanted to give to a show that was both smaller than a Night Vale Presents podcast and something we both loved. Unfortunately, by the time we ordered, it seemed like Casper’s Myths and Legends code had ended. It did help that Jeffrey Cranor’s ads for Casper were so extremely good:

Plus, [the] delivery is free and Casper purchasers have 100 days–that’s over three months, an entire calendar season–to return the mattress if it’s not their thing, but there’s no way it’s not their thing because it is comfy as hell.

As hell.

Casper mattresses are made from springy latex foam and supportive memory foam. Those things are both comfy and fancy–none of those sagging, creaking springs. It holds its comfy-as-hell shape. Plus, as I said before: inexpensive. Get a Casper mattress for $500 for a twin or $950 for a king, which is way less expensive than comparable mattresses, like the garbage fire we used to have before Casper. We literally slept on a pile of trash that was on fire. It was awful.

We decided against the boxspring to go with it–partially because we didn’t think it’d be necessary, and partially because we were already making a big purchase–and ordered a Queen.

Our mattress arrived less than a week later in a massive box. When Caspers are shipped, they’re vacuum-sealed and rolled up like a giant Swiss roll. Claims of the box being the size of a “dorm room fridge” are inaccurate, or, at least, not accurate for the sad fridge in my state school dorm. The box was more like 1.5 dorm fridges tall, 1.5 dorm fridges wide. After unboxing the Swiss roll mattress, we took it upstairs to our room, which was substantially more difficult than any podcast made it seem. The mattress is still mattress weight–you know, conservation of mass and all that–but condensed into Swiss roll size, making it feel much more dense and harder to move than  expected. However, I can say that this was still easier than trying to figure out how to go buy a mattress at a store and get it home in our car at the time, which was a ’92 Camry, and the free shipping was obviously better than having a store ship it to us.

We placed the mattress on our floor, because we did not have a bed frame to fit it, and carefully slashed the plastic open to get air into the bag. This was, hands down, the best part of the “unboxing”; the mattress puffs up shockingly quickly, looking like one of those grow-your-own toys on fast forward. Watching the mattress expand was weirdly entertaining.

All of this, of course, is more or less irrelevant when it comes to the mattress itself. What matters is how the Casper actually is as a mattress and whether or not it is, in Cranor’s words, comfy as hell.

After spending a year with our Casper mattress, I can confirm that it is comfy as hell, and it’s one of the best purchases we’ve ever made. Before getting our Casper, I was having awful sleeping problems; our bad mattress paired with my anxiety made for so many literally sleepless nights that I would literally cry in desperation at night. Once we got the Casper, that all stopped. Even though I still deal with the anxiety, the Casper is actually so comfortable that if I’m lying on it while tired, I will fall asleep, anxiety be damned.

The feel of the Casper is hard to explain. People say it’s got “just the right sink, but the right bounce,” and while that’s hardly descriptive, it is accurate. The Casper doesn’t have the same being-eaten-by-a-goo-monster feeling that a memory foam mattress does, and it also doesn’t have the this-would-be-more-fun-to-jump-on-than-sleep-on bounciness of a spring mattress. The mattress isn’t initially firm because it takes a moment to conform to your body shape, but underneath that layer of softness is a layer of support. The claim of it being a mattress for everyone actually seems accurate to me, too. I am an overweight short woman with a bad back, meaning I need mattresses to be a little firm, and my husband is lanky, tall, and likes softer mattresses. Both of us love our Casper mattress. Even at nice hotels, I find myself missing my mattress back home, and I love hotels.

All in all, I really couldn’t recommend the Casper more. The prices are competitive, the product is great, and it helps me give back to some of my favorite shows. Since getting our Casper, I’ve recommended it to every friend asking about getting a new mattress. While purchasing a mattress is a big, expensive decision, I really don’t think you can go wrong with a Casper. It’s comfy as hell.

As hell.