Panda stands out amongst mattress brands because of its use of bamboo.
You do see the material being used in other brands but not to the same extent. (If you’re interested, other brands that use bamboo include posh-brand Vispring, which uses a layer of bamboo in its £2000ish Realm mattress).
How are the Panda mattress and toppers designed? Are they any good?
Woah there! Hold your horses, we’ll get to that.
There are currently two panda mattresses and one Bamboo Mattress Topper. The standard model is the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress. Panda sometimes refer to this mattress as the ‘Original’ model.
The upgraded version is the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress Pro. Presumably the ‘Pro’ means it is for people who are professional sleepers rather than amateurs (Ed: Er, are you sure about this?…).
Let’s start with a guide to the standard Panda mattress and then we’ll look at what you get for upgrading – and whether we think it’s worth the extra money.
We’ll then move onto the topper for a thrilling finale. That’s what they call a teaser in showbiz.
Ok then, tell us about the original Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress
The term ‘hybrid’ is something of a trendy and broadly applied term, but it usually means a mattress that uses springs on the bottom and memory on the top.
In the case of the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress, it combines the memory foam with bamboo because of its ‘odour-resistant and highly breathable’ qualities (that’s according to Panda’s description).
The memory foam is described as open cell, which means it has been designed in a way to avoid you getting too hot. A fairly common issue with memory foam is that it can make you feel warmer than natural mattress materials (such as wool or latex) – but lots of manufacturers have developed ways to make this less of an issue.
Personally, I like memory foam mattresses. They are less bouncy than a traditional mattress so you tend not to feel your bed buddy moving as much. You also sink into the mattress and get a bit of a hugging sensation. It’s not for everyone, but it’s also a pretty subtle feeling when you are looking at a hybrid mattress such as this one.
What about bamboo? Is it a good material for mattresses?
There hasn’t been a huge amount of academic research into the use of bamboo in mattresses. Well, if there has been then I’ve not found it yet despite my enthusiastic Googling.
I did find a study by Akhtarul Islam Amjad called ‘Bamboo fibre: A sustainable solution for textile manufacturing‘, which explains that ‘Bamboo fibre possesses antibacterial properties’ . It also says that ‘there are a lot of environmental benefits of bamboo and its fibres’ but cautions that ‘it is crucial to recognize the ecological concerns associated with its rapid and aggressive growth’. Another study called Sustainable Textiles: The role of bamboo and a comparison of bamboo textile properties’ by Marilyn Waite in 2009 explained that ‘The advantages of bamboo fabric are its very soft feel (chemically-manufactured) or ramie-like feel (mechanically-manufactured), its antimicrobial properties, its moisture wicking capabilities and its anti-static nature’. In case you’re wondering, ‘ramie’ is a bit like linen.
You may be interested to know that ‘The Bamboo textiles are made using Moso, Dragon and Ci Bamboo – which is not the type of Bamboo that Pandas eat’ (that’s according to Panda).
What can you tell us about the springs? I’m desperate to know.
There’s no need to be sarcastic. I do appreciate that not everyone finds mattress design as interesting as me…
There are two main types of springs used in mattresses. The old fashioned method is an ‘open coil’ or ‘bonnell’ spring where you get a huge long piece of metal and twist it round and round into a series of springs. The posher option is to use lots of little springs in small pockets (i.e. pocket springs).
In my opinion, pocket springs are far superior. You wobble around much less and generally feel more supported. The main downside is that pocket springs are harder to recycle as they are sealed into little pockets, whereas open coil mattresses just use one piece of metal.
In the case of the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress, you get 800 pocket springs. The convention in the mattress industry is to refer to the number that you get on a king size mattress, even if you are talking about a single mattress. A spring count of 800 is quite low for a pocket sprung mattress. My preference is for a mattress with 1000 – 2000 springs, with a number towards the top of that range being better for heavier people who enjoy eating McDonalds in bed.
However, it seems to be fairly common for a figure around 800 to be used in hybrid mattresses, presumably because the springs aren’t the only thing working to keep you comfortable.
How firm is the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress?
Panda describes its Hybrid Bamboo Mattress as being Medium-Firm or ‘6.5’ (see this page). This is using a scale out of 10, with 1 being soft and 10 being firm.
The FAQ on the Panda website says that ‘The Panda Hybrid Mattress offers a combination of premium pocket springs and ultra-supportive foams that provide a soft-firm feel.’ I’ve not seen other brands using a ‘soft-firm’ description but my assumption is that they mean it is soft and cosy on top but feels firm and supportive underneath.
The slight issue with grading a mattress on a firmness is that each mattress company applies its own rules. No one has ever got mattress companies together and persuaded them to come up with a universal system for measuring for firmness. To be fair, this would be rather complicated and would probably require the United Nations to make it happen.
As a general rule, heavier people need firmer mattresses than lighter people. Also, side sleepers need softer mattresses than front and back sleepers. Some brands – such as Vispring – give clear advice on which mattress you should choose based on your weight, but we can’t really apply that to other brands. In case you’re curious, Vispring suggest its soft mattresses are best for people who weigh less than 11 stone. Medium mattresses are for people who weight 11-16 stone. Firm mattresses are best if you weight 16-20 stone and extra firm is for 20 stone plus.
As I said though, we can’t really apply one mattress brand’s guidance to other brands, such as Panda.
Does the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress come with a trial period? Or can I try it out in the shop?
You can’t try the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress in a shop. This is a fairly common setup with modern mattress brands. The mattresses are stored in a vacuum sealed box, which is posted to you and then expands on arrival. This practice – combined with the lack of retail space, keeps prices down.
Instead, you get a trial period so you can test it out at home – and a long warranty.
Long trial periods and warranties have become something of an arms race amongst modern and trendy mattress brands. In this case, you get 100 nights to try it out and a 10 year warranty. That matches similar deals from the likes of Emma and Eve Sleep. Some brands are more generous, as Nectar Sleep’s 365 night trial period and ‘forever’ warranty.
It’s important to interrogate a mattress company before accepting a trial period. The Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress trial seems to be one of the more generous but I haven’t managed to find a huge amount of detail on this trial page. Much of the detail refers to the 30 night trial that comes with pillows and toppers. The key questions to ask before taking a mattress trial are:
- Who pays for return postage if I want to return it?
- Do I need to use a mattress protector during the trial period? If so, do I need to buy one at the same time as the mattress?
- Will I receive a refund or will I be offered an exchange? If I exchange for a cheaper mattress, will I receive the difference back?
- Is there a minimum length of time that I need to keep the mattress before I can return it?
From what I understand of the Panda trial period, they will pay for the return postage and give a refund. However, I would encourage you to have a read of the trial period page for yourself.
What about the Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress Pro? What do you get for upgrading?
The most notable upgrade from the standard to the pro version of the Panda mattress is the higher spring count, which leaps up from 800 to 1500.
That’s a particularly big upgrade if you are heavier than average. From what I can tell, the springs are full size and are on one layer. Some mattresses can be a bit misleading, as they use thousands of tiny springs to come up with an impressive sounding number. That doesn’t appear to be the case here.
The Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress Pro also has ‘multi-zonal’ springs whilst the standard model has ‘encapsulated springs’. We are careering dangerously towards Jargon City here, with language that is somewhat more complicated than it needs to be.
Basically, the more expensive mattress has some springs that are firmer than others to match a typical body shape. I am sure the marketing people will raise an eyebrow and claim that I’m oversimplifying it, but that’s the basic idea of zoned springs. Some parts of our body need more support than others, so a zoned mattress aims to help with that. Of course, you may not feel that you have beautiful curves and may be a little bit more lumpy and bumpy, but that’s the theory.
Both the standard and pro Panda mattresses use a layer of foam containing bamboo. They call this the ‘BioCell Foam’ layer.
However, there’s another layer on the ‘pro’ version of the Panda mattress that is slightly differently designed to the standard mattress.
The ‘standard mattress’ uses something called DualFlex Foam, whilst the posher and more expensive ‘Pro’ model uses OrthoAlign Foam.
We are once again taking a quick trip to Jargon City here, but hold my hand and I’ll guide you through it.
DualFlex and OrthoAlign are both terms that have been created by Panda. You won’t find them on other mattresses. Most mattress brands do something similar in an effort to explain why their foam is notably different to the hundreds of other white rectangles for sale in the UK.
The official descriptions say that the cheaper product offers ‘the ultimate comfort and support’ whilst the more expensive product offers ‘the highest level of comfort and support’. From this alone it is difficult to draw much conclusion about which is best.
They are both versions of memory foam, but the DualFlex appears to be two layers stuck together whilst the OrthoAlign is one layer.
After much reading on the Panda website, I have concluded that the main difference is that the more expensive OrthoAlign memory foam is denser. In fact, Panda claims it is ‘the highest-density, most supportive memory foam in the UK’.
However, it does also claim that the cheaper DualFlex foam that is used on the standard mattress is a ‘highly resilient memory foam’ – so you are getting a solid piece of foam either way.
What about the Panda Bamboo Topper?
Buying a topper is a budget-friendly way to give your mattress an upgrade, or to give it a different firmness feel. My only word of caution is that it won’t necessarily cover up notable dips and sagging. In that instance, you are really just wallpapering over subsidence and could do with a new mattress (or try turning it over if it’s double sided).
With that caveat, I will say that the Panda Bamboo Topper is good value – in that it costs about a fifth of the price of the standard Panda Hybrid Bamboo Mattress.
The section of the topper that uses bamboo is the cover, which makes sense as it is the layer that it closest to your skin.
Underneath, it is essentially a 5cm deep memory foam topper. Panda have combined the memory foam with a gel to try and get over the issue of memory foam sometimes feeling a bit warm. They call this HydroFoam, which is a product that is unique to Panda rather than something you will find elsewhere.
Other brands use similar ideas to try and make the most of memory foam’s consistent support whilst overcoming the issue of it making you feel a bit warm. For example, Mattress Online lists 30+ mattresses that use gel in its design.
The firmness level of the Panda topper is described as ‘medium-firm and supportive’. As mentioned earlier, firmness levels on mattresses are a bit of a tricky area as there is no universal agreement. The good thing about the Panda Topper is that you get a 30 day trial period, so you can make a decision about whether it is right for you.
I am not quite sure on what is meant by the addition of the word ‘supportive’ in this firmness rating. The support you receive from a mattress or topper will vary depending on your weight and your sleeping position.
Leave a Reply