In the case of the Woolroom Luxury Wooly mattress, wool is championed as a sustainable, high-quality, and practical material. The wool used is very much “farm-to-mattress,” as each bed comes with a QR code that traces the very wool in your bed back to the British-based farm it came from. Wool is only collected from farms that have been verified to comply with the UK Animal Welfare Act of 2006.

Woolroom had a few UK-based certifications I was unfamiliar with—nothing like a crash course! Here’s what this mattress has to offer: the Shepherd’s Crook certification that verifies the wool used is indeed authentic, traceable British wool; the Woolmark certification that it’s the real deal and purest version of wool out there; Allergy UK to show that it is resistant to allergens; and Bangor University’s Bio Composites verification, showing that’s free of volatile organic compounds (kind of like the GreenGuard Gold certification here in the States).

In this hybrid mattress, aside from the cover, the key components are wool and a whopping 8,500 individually pocketed nano, micro, and standard pocketed coils. Wool is like the jack-of-all-trades of the mattress world, as it can be used for support, airflow, cushioning, and even as a natural fire retardant. Specifically, the outer cover is made from a merino wool blend with a hand-tufted surface, which helps keep the top layer of wool in place.

Large and in Charge

I received this mattress as a manufacturer’s sample for testing purposes. It was donated to charity upon completion of my test, but I’m someone who will thoroughly analyze a product’s overall value and quality for the price. For a hand-crafted, luxury mattress with a price tag to match, I’d hope that the shipping matched that energy. The Woolroom Luxury Wooly hybrid mattress departed from Woolroom’s Greenville, South Carolina, factory. I got prompt tracking information, right up until the truck dropped the box off on my doorstep. I was actually surprised it was a mattress-in-a-box, because, given the notes about hand-built construction, I had expected it to come fully assembled, like what I’ve seen with similar brands like Saatva.

Regardless, I quickly unboxed the mattress to allow it time to inflate and breathe. Due to all the coils, this item is heavy and requires two people to handle its weight. I highly encourage you to get a buddy to help with this process. However, the mattress didn’t take long to puff up once unboxed. The mattress I received was 11 inches tall, but Woolroom states that yours could be up to 12 inches—just the nature of natural materials, I suppose. But I still nicknamed this bed “woolly mammoth,” just because of how imposing it seemed in my studio.

On the Move

Photograph: Julia Forbes

I have trouble sticking to just one sleep position, and I rely on mattresses with a bouncy feel to support me regardless of which one I choose. This is a mattress term called responsiveness, and it’s essential for situations like mine that require constant support. Currently, I’m desperately trying to be a side sleeper due to lower back pain, and I opted for the medium tension. “Tension” is the brand’s term for mattress firmness, and I was looking for enough cushioning for my shoulders and hips while maintaining enough support for my spine. I usually go for medium-firm mattresses when testing to cover responsiveness, pressure relief, and lumbar support, but the Luxury Wooly only comes in two types: medium and firm. Woolroom rates the medium as a 7 out of 10 in firmness. If I had opted for firm, Woolroom rates it 8.5 out of 10.