A mattress is not, ideally, something you buy multiples of in quick succession.
But life can be far from idyllic. Sometimes you find yourself going from selling a mattress you just bought on your own, as part of the great, romantic, and deeply hopeful human act that is moving in with a partner and combining your households, to—one pandemic, one breakup, and one cross-country move later—being right back where you began. In need of a reasonably priced, comfortable place to lay your single, little head.
I bought my first Leesa Original Mattress—one of Wirecutter’s favorite memory-foam mattresses—in 2017. I was in my 20s, working what felt like my first real, grownup job, and desperately ready to make a grownup purchase to match. Replacing my hand-me-down, decade-old sinking mattress seemed like the most adult thing I could do.
At the time, the idea of a bed showing up at the door in a box still felt like a novelty. Casper was dominating the scene. But Wirecutter steered me toward the Leesa Original for its firmness, in contrast to Casper’s “flimsiness,” and the price ($940 at the time) was right. And that was that.
Top pick
Combining the gentle cradle of a classic memory-foam mattress with an underlying firmness, the Leesa Original hugs you without hampering movement.
The Leesa exceeded my expectations: It felt cushiony to sink into every evening, but unlike the ragged mattress it replaced, it actually felt supportive. My knees, shoulders, and hips all felt cushioned as I rolled from my back and side. Yet I was sufficiently propped up enough to keep my joints aligned, never once waking with a creaky back or twisted neck.
And it was so soft. Not fluffy-soft, but soft in a way that was deeply cozy and inviting, perfect for cuddling with my dog. It cradled us both in a way that I no longer felt her every movement in the middle of the night.
I felt like a well-rested adult. Deeply pleased with my purchase. Confident I would sleep comfortably on it for years to come. Then I fell in love with a person who owned a significantly more expensive mattress that he touted as best-in-class. And because we do stupid things when our brains are flooded with oxytocin, I believed him. I sold my Leesa when we moved in together.
When we broke up, I moved across the country. From my fifth-floor-walkup Brooklyn sublet, sleeping on a stranger’s cheap and squishy placeholder bed, I realized many things at once. Some of them pragmatic, some of them existential, all of them suddenly and glaringly obvious, illuminated by that bright light that a breakup shines into every crevice of your brain.
I had always hated my boyfriend’s stupid, supposedly luxe mattress. It had zero bounce and was almost comically thick, which gave it a sort of unsettling, formal feeling of being too far from the ground and made it nearly impossible to casually collapse into. I desperately missed the cozy haven of my Leesa Original.
Your 30s are really just a relentless deluge of moments where you realize that your past self was both far stupider and far smarter than you thought at the time. The version of myself who thought my life would go so according to plan that I wouldn’t possibly need to buy a new mattress was laughably naive. But the one who was so enamored with her grownup purchase? She actually, shockingly, knew what she was talking about.
So I bought another brand new Leesa Original, this time for that Brooklyn sublet (where I eventually signed a lease), and I have been sleeping happily and comfortably ever since. I didn’t just love my Leesa because it was such an upgrade from the flimsy mattress of my early 20s. It’s actually a really good mattress.
It’s been seven years since I bought my first Leesa and nearly three since I bought my second. I now have the back of someone in their mid-30s, but I still look forward to plopping into bed at the end of the day, and my spine still feels aligned when I wake up. My 25-pound dog still jumps up next to me in the middle of the night, and she still doesn’t disturb me.
I’ve found that the Leesa sort of buoyantly cushions me, with a subtle springiness that makes it an extremely satisfying bed to plop into. The density of the memory foam, at 3 pounds per cubic foot, is the bare minimum that our mattress experts expect (and it’s why we don’t recommend it for people who weigh over 200 pounds), but it’s never sagged or slumped.
I can only imagine that the feeling of falling asleep on my Leesa is similar to how my friends’ newborns feel when being put in a sleep sack—instantly relaxed (so much so that I notice its absence when I sleep away from home). Even the fanciest hotel beds don’t lull me to sleep in quite the same way.
And in a perfect world, I would still be sleeping on my original Leesa. But such is life. And happily, alongside all of its other great qualities, the Leesa Original is a great value. This is especially important if you fall in and out of love and need to buy two, though I sincerely hope you never have to.
This article was edited by Maxine Builder and Megan Beauchamp.
