TOTAL: 95/100

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to sleep well in (nearly) any situation. As someone who used a cheap twin bed until the age of roughly 27, I never even really put much stock in my mattress—whatever it was, I was snoozing on it like a baby. Cut to five years later, when my boyfriend and I decided to upgrade our old queen bed for a super-firm mattress we found on sale. Suddenly, I was tossing and turning nonstop. The culprit? A newly searing pain in my hips that simply wouldn’t quit. While I was able to mask the throbbing for a while with a good mattress topper (shoutout to Nolah, from $249), the need for a new, softer bed that would accommodate my side-sleeping habits—and the hips those habits were putting pressure on—was strong. Enter: the Avocado Green mattress with pillow top, which just so happens to be on sale, dropping it from $1,799 to $1,599.

The Avocado was delivered to my home by a team who brought the item into our room. (A word to the wise: This baby is heavy, so you’re gonna want to spring for that in-home delivery and setup, $249). Since then, myself (a side-sleeper), my boyfriend (a back sleeper) and our two cats (all over sleepers) have been dozing on it every night for the past two months using a Saatva Amalfi platform frame (from $895).

At the request of my boyfriend, who found this mattress’s pillowy top to be a smidge *too* soft (but more on that later), we use it with a Nolah mattress topper.

The Avocado Green mattress is a 100 percent organic mattress with GREENGUARD gold certification, which tests low chemical emission products for compliance to “key chemical emission standards.” It also has Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS), Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) certifications, respectively, for its three standout features: a hybrid Dunlop latex rubber foam innerspring, which is naturally antimicrobial, a breathable cotton cover and its wool filling, which is known to wick away moisture and be flame-retardant.

In addition to being fully organic, it’s MADE Safe-certified, which indicates that it's free of more than 6,500 harmful substances.

On the firmness front, it’s rated at a 7, or gentle-yet-firm, which the company recommends for both back and stomach sleepers. With the addition of the pillow top, the firmness rating is lowered to 6, which Avocado says makes it ideal for side sleepers—ding ding ding!—as well as all-around sleepers, heavier individuals and athletes.

Right out of the gate, we were able to use the mattress: There were no noxious odors that might put us off laying on it the first night, like you tend to see—er, rather, smell—with other brands. The Purple pillow, for instance, stunk up our whole room for a good two weeks—and that was just the pillow. While both brands use non-toxic latex materials, Avocado’s latex is fully organic, which was a big win in the smell department.

It also didn’t need to expand in the same way that a typical bed-in-a-box would. While it did take a few days to rise to settle into its full firmness—something that caused my back-sleeping boyfriend a bit of pain in the first few nights—it was still usable. Comfortable, even, for myself. If you find you don’t like it right out of the gate, give it a bit: The brand offers a whopping one-year trial period, so if it’s still not to your liking after it settles, you can always return it for a $99 fee.

The 15 Best Mattresses-in-a-Box, According to People Who Have Slept on Them

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Nicole is PureWow's Commerce Director. With a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Michigan State University and more than 15 years of experience writing and editing shopping content, she has made a career for herself covering her favorite topics: fashion, lifestyle, travel and rock 'n' roll. She lives in Florida with her boyfriend and two cats, and she can usually be found stalking hairless animals on the internet. Check out her blog at nicolebjean.com. (You can also follow her on Twitter or Instagram.)

PureWow is the best friend you never had when it comes to finding the best, most useful lifestyle products online. Founded in 2010, our company’s editors and writers have spent more than a decade shopping online, digging through sales and putting our home goods, beauty finds, wellness picks and more through the wringer—all to help you determine which ones are actually worth your hard-earned cash. From our PureWow100 series, which sees each and every item we test being ranked on a 100-point scale of awesomeness, to the painstakingly curated lists our fashion, beauty, cooking, home and family editors create as vertical experts, you can trust that our recommendations include some of the greatest items you’ll find on the internet. Whether you're looking for travel-size hair dryers you can take on-the-go or women’s walking shoes that won’t hurt your feet, we’ve got you covered.