If you’ve ever wanted to cuddle up with a big, soft bear without fear of going down a peg in the food web—now’s your chance. Bear is a bed-in-a-box brand that markets its mattresses with a unique cover that’s made with Celliant-infused fabric. The brand claims the fabric converts your body heat into infrared energy, which is supposed to promote better sleep. This was a feature I was most excited to test when I began my Bear Star Hybrid mattress review.
The Bear Star Hybrid mattress is suitable for a wide variety of bodies and sleeping positions.
The Bear Star Hybrid mattress is the middle-tier model among the brand’s good, better and best lineup of hybrid beds. I tested the mattress by sleeping on it for over a month to gain a solid understanding of how it functions and feels in real life. Additionally, I got unsolicited feedback from loved ones while it was in my guest room for a period of time. My Bear Star Hybrid review goes in-depth into the bed’s highlights, who I think it suits best and insights from experts about its cover’s special tech.
Bear Star Hybrid Mattress Construction, Firmness And Feel
Supportive Construction With A Unique Cover
The Bear Star Hybrid is a 13-inch mattress that boasts more premium features than the flagship Bear Original, including a cooling cover and a pressure-relieving pillow top.
The different layers and materials found in the Bear Star Hybrid, including responsive foam and a ... [+]
- A Celliant-infused, Hydrocool cover that Bear claims can absorb and convert body heat into infrared energy that it transfers back to the body. It’s also fast-drying and moisture wicking.
- A pillow top with around an inch or two of gel foam for added comfort.
- A thick, pocketed coil layer with a perimeter made of extra-strong innersprings for enhanced edge support.
- Responsive Comfort Foam that makes up the center layer and is partly responsible for the bed’s neutral, bouncy feel.
- A dense, firm foam layer that acts as a base for the coils and the rest of the mattress.
The Bear Star Hybrid mattress has a traditional feel that’s only a touch firmer than medium (on a firmness scale from 1 to 10, I place it around a 6). It feels supportive without a trace of that “sinking” feeling common to memory foam, but it’s not so supportive that it feels too firm. It’s balanced in a way that should appeal to a wide variety of people. I switch between my stomach and side during sleep, and I feel it properly supports my back when I’m on my stomach and cradles my joints while on my side.
The pillow top gives it a luxuriant, plush look and feel that you might find in an upscale hotel. The pillow top comes standard as one of the mattress’ main features, as distinct from the Bear Pro Hybrid (the brand’s entry-level hybrid model), which has a shorter, firmer profile and an optional pillow top that you have to pay for.
Dillon feeling the Celliant-infused cover on the Bear Star Hybrid—note that fluffy Euro top.
Bear Star Hybrid Features
A Celliant-Infused Cover For Better Sleep
Seth Casden, CEO and cofounder of Hologenix and one of the originators of Celliant, says it’s “an all-natural blend of bioceramic minerals that are activated by body heat. If you’ve ever slept next to a ‘hot sleeper,’ you know that you can feel the escaping warmth coming from them—but this heat is something that all of us are giving off whether we sleep hot or not.”
Celliant works to harness that body heat and transmit it back into your body as infrared energy. This is a process Casden says is clinically demonstrated to boost local blood circulation and cellular oxygenation, which can help enhance sleep quality, aid the body’s natural recovery process after physical activity and may even boost performance. In a 2010 study involving six individuals with back pain, Dr. Marcel Hungs and Dr. Annabel Wang from University of California, Irvine, found that mattress covers with optically modified polyethylene terephthalate fiber (what is now Celliant) reduced disruptions in sleep, improved sleep quality and helped relieve nighttime back pain.
Pressure Relief
I love a bed with a pillow top, and the plush, cushion of the Star Hybrid’s was the first thing I noticed. It relieves pressure without sacrificing support—a job it should do well unless you’re a strict side sleeper who needs an extra plush mattress.
Cooling
This gets a little tricky. I don’t think the cover is cool to the touch, but I do think the Bear Star Hybrid helps you sleep more temperature-neutral. Sleeping hot can be a problem for my partner and me in some beds, like on my parents’ old memory foam bed in their guest room, but it’s not with the Bear Star Hybrid.
Casden says, “Many times, nighttime awakenings are the result of the sleeper being either too hot or too cold. Since Celliant supports the body’s ability to thermoregulate itself more effectively and maintain homeostasis in terms of body temperature, it can alleviate some of the disturbances caused by this.”
Motion Transfer
Despite the coils in its construction, the Bear Star Hybrid does share one great quality with other memory foam mattresses: second-to-none motion isolation, or the bed’s ability to stop movement across the mattress. There is zero to little motion transfer on this mattress, and a lot of times I can’t even tell when my partner gets up in the middle of the night.
The memory foam and comfy Euro top on the Bear Star Hybrid make it great at isolating motion.
Support
The Bear Star Hybrid provided great support, thanks to its supportive coils in and around the mattress’ perimeter. You sit more on top of the mattress than you do within its foam layers. With its 13-inch hybrid construction, I think it would make a great mattress for any body type, from petite to heavy.
When I switched to the Bear Star Hybrid from the bed I’ve used for the last four years, I noticed a marked improvement in edge support (meaning the strength and durability of a mattress’ edges). I could put on my shoes while sitting on the edge of the bed without sinking, and I feel supported when my bed-hogging partner inches me to the edge.
Ease Of Movement
Knowing the Bear Original, the brand’s less expensive memory foam flagship, I had slightly expected a similar feel. But the Bear Star Hybrid, underneath its fluffy pillow top, is more nuanced and responsive, so you don’t get that “sink in” feel memory foam is known for.
About The Company
Bear was one of the first brands I know of to put Celliant technology in mattresses and popularize it with the Bear Original in 2015. Casden says, “We have tested Celliant in pilot studies that show promising results on the ability to help people fall asleep faster and improve their sleep efficiency, and are continuing to pursue science that further establishes this.”
While Bear mattresses’ Celliant technology may help better sleep, Casden claims that’s not its only benefit: “It also helps the body recover faster from physical fatigue, such as exercise or the daily grind,” through the circulation and cellular oxygenation process, which absorbs body heat and transfers it back to your body as infrared radiation.
Shipping And Delivery
The Bear Star Hybrid was compressed inside a cardboard box and shipped for free directly to my front door. It’s a little heavier than your average bed-in-a-box (a queen size weighs 110 pounds) because of its heavy hybrid coils and memory foam. I was able to drag the box to my bedroom on my own, but I recruited help to unbox and lay out the mattress. The process overall was pretty painless, as the bed only took around 5 minutes to unbox. New mattresses emit an odor like a new car, which dissipates after a day or so.
Trial Period And Returns
Regardless of the Bear mattress you buy, customers receive free shipping and a 120-night trial. Bear recommends that you keep the mattress for 30 days before returning it to allow your body enough time to fully adjust.
If you still don’t like your mattress at the end of the 30 days, you can contact Bear customer service to be eligible for a full refund.
Warranty
Bear mattresses are backed by a lifetime warranty, while the average warranty period for a mattress lasts around 10 or 20 years.
Other Mattresses From Bear
Final Thoughts On The Bear Star Hybrid
What I Like
- My favorite feature has to be the Celliant-infused cover. No, I can’t physically measure the effect the fabric has on me. But I do think I wake up feeling refreshed, the way you should feel after a good night’s sleep on a good mattress. I don’t know if I can give all the credit to the pillow-top.
- It’s hard not to like a bed that has all the benefits of a memory foam mattress without the downsides. It offers pressure relief, support and stops motion transfer, without feeling like quicksand.
- It has an accommodating medium to medium-firm profile that’ll suit all sleeping positions, and a strong hybrid design that suits all body types. When it was in my guest room my loved ones told me how well they slept on it, and admitted they liked it better than their own beds at home.
- It offers a great bang-for-your-buck. It retails around $2,000, but you can often get it around $1,300 because Bear is consistent with its promotions. It’s difficult to find a hotel-quality bed at that price.
What I Dislike
- In a world where I was only a side sleeper, I’d probably want a softer mattress. I see it being a little too firm in the long run for a side sleeper who presses their shoulder and hips into the mattress most of the night.
- I’m being nit-picky, but premium mattresses with strong warranties are usually backed with year-long trial periods, but you get a 120-night trial with Bear.
How I Tested The Bear Star Hybrid
My background is in sleep with years of testing mattresses and other sleep products under my belt. I’ve tested all the major beds, from Saatva, Nectar and Tempur-Pedic, to everything in between.
I’ve had the Bear Star Hybrid mattress for several months now and have switched it between my guest and primary bedroom. I dedicated 30 days straight to testing the Bear Star Hybrid, taking notice of how it felt in different sleeping positions, its temperature, ability to stop motion transfer and more. I also spoke with Seth Casden, the CEO and cofounder of Hologenix (the company that created Celliant), to get a more in-depth understanding of how the fabric works.
My Expertise
I’ve been testing mattresses since 2019, which has now added up to well over 100 different beds. As a self-proclaimed mattress expert, I can speak on mattresses from a health perspective and make recommendations based on a person’s specific needs. I’m also a certified sleep science coach, with dozens of research hours on sleep under my belt.
Does the Celliant in Bear Star Hybrid wear off?
Since Celliant is permanently embedded into the fibers of the mattress ticking, Bear says it is not possible for it to wear off. The brand says Celliant has undergone mechanical testing and wash testing to ensure it is durable for the product’s lifetime.
Is The Bear Hybrid Mattress Worth It?
In my opinion, yes. If your budget is under $1,500 for a queen size then the Bear Star Hybrid offers a good value. It’s a premium, 5-star hotel-quality mattress with a special Celliant-infused cover, but it retails for a lot less than many competing luxury mattresses.
