The Nolah Evolution 15″ is a luxury hybrid mattress and the top-tier option from Denver-based company Nolah Sleep. Since its release in 2020, it’s become Nolah’s best-selling and highest-rated mattress, with an average of 4.9 out of 5 stars from over 400 user reviews on the company’s site.
There are three different firmness options to choose between plush (soft), luxury firm (medium-firm) and firm. We slept on the popular luxury firm version for two weeks to test how well the Nolah Evolution 15″ stands up against the competition in our best mattress guide.
The first thing we noticed when we sat on it was how cool this mattress in a box felt. The top layer is made with phase-changing ArcticTex fibers, which are designed to absorb and release heat, giving it that cool-to-the-touch feeling. The quilted Euro topper also has 2 inches of cooling foam, a 2-inch heat escape border gusset, and a 2-inch layer of proprietary graphite-infused memory foam – all of which aim to draw heat away from the body.
However, while most nights we found the Nolah’s advanced cooling tech did its job and kept us comfortable, we still woke up sweating a few times. As a result, we wouldn’t recommend the Evolution 15 for hot sleepers – it hasn’t made it into our best cooling mattress guide.
Set-up
A twin-size Nolah Evolution 15″ Mattress weighs 70lbs. I needed some help with carrying it up the stairs and removing it from the box. If you buy a queen (110lbs) or king (139lbs), definitely ask a friend or family member to assist you with set-up – especially since it’s quite bulky once unfurled.
Alternatively, you can pay $225 for white glove service, which includes set-up for your new Nolah mattress plus removal of your old bed. (If you need help with just set-up or removal, it’ll cost $125.)
The Nolah Evolution 15″ comes with an instruction sheet plus a collection of Nolah ‘swag’ in the form of stickers. An ergonomic pocket blade would have been nice – and useful – to include, but fortunately we had plenty of those on hand from past mattress tests.
The Nolah mattress inflated right after we unrolled it and unwrapped its vacuum-sealed plastic cover. It doesn’t take much time at all for it to achieve its intended firmness, so you can sleep on the Nolah Evolution 15″ Mattress right away.
Off-gassing
The Nolah’s foam layers are CertiPUR-US-certified. In other words, they’re made without ozone-depleting materials and are low in the volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions that yield an unpleasant (but otherwise harmless) ‘chemical’ scent.
The Nolah Evolution 15″ Mattress emitted an obvious off-gassing smell once we unwrapped it. Fortunately, it was a warm enough afternoon for us to crack open a window, which helped dissipate the scent by the time we were ready for bed hours later. Beyond that point, we didn’t detect an obvious odor.
Pressure relief
The luxury firm Nolah Evolution is a 15-inch tall, medium firm-to-firm hybrid mattress. To test its pressure relief we placed a 56lb weight in the middle of the bed. The mattress supported the weight with minimal give, and showed no obvious indentation once we removed it.
The Nolah features an 8in layer of HDMax Tri-Zone coils for pressure relief in key areas – shoulders and neck, lower back, and hips and legs. There’s also a 2in layer of high-resilience foam for full-body support, along with two inches of graphite-infused foam that relieves joint pressure whilst wicking away heat.
Nolah says its luxury firm Evolution 15″ mattress is most popular with back sleepers – and our experience corroborates that claim. Most of our back sleepers felt well-supported, especially in the lumbar area. Similarly, several of our stomach sleepers found the Nolah had the right blend of give and firmness, enough that they didn’t feel inclined to place a pillow underneath their pelvis to improve alignment.
Motion transfer
A twin mattress is really only designed for one person to sleep on comfortably, so to test the motion transfer of the Nolah Evolution 15″ Mattress we performed a few drop tests.
We dropped a 10lb weight approximately 25in away from an empty wine glass at 4in, 8in and 12in heights. This simulates three scenarios: a partner tossing-and-turning, a partner getting in or out of bed, and a partner jumping in or out of bed.
When we dropped the 10lb weight from 4in high, the wine glass hardly moved – which bodes well if your co-sleeper is restless, as you’re unlikely to wake up from their movements in the middle of the night.
The wine glass remained steady when the weight fell from a 8in high, and barely jiggled after the 12in drop. That means if you and your partner operate on different sleep schedules, the chances of one of you disrupting the other are very low.
Read More: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/nolah-evolution-15-mattress-review
