Cooling gel mattress toppers are often infused with polymer gel, a material used to wick away heat. This type of topper is popular with people who overheat while sleeping, and are often used as a way to make mattresses cooler – or at least to help them regulate temperature better. You'll find plenty of them in our best mattress toppers guide, but is a cooling gel mattress topper right for you?
Here we look at the main aspects of cooling gel bed toppers, as well as rounding up the three we'd buy right now ahead of this year's Black Friday mattress deals arriving in November.
If after reading you decide that what you actually need is a new mattress, then our guide to the best mattress of 2024 contains our top-rated recommendations – and most of them have some form of temperature control or cooling. For now, here's what you need to know about cooling gel mattress toppers, their benefits, drawbacks, and who should and shouldn't buy one...
What is a cooling gel mattress topper?
Mattress toppers refer to any layer of padding that can be added to the surface of a mattress to alter its feel. Mattress toppers come in a wide range of designs and materials, including latex, down and feather, and wool. However, the most popular material used for mattress toppers is memory foam, as its body-hugging pressure relief is great for softening hard beds.
While memory foam provides a plush surface, it does have a tendency to trap heat and cause mattresses to sleep warm. To combat this overheating side effect, a lot of the best memory foam mattress toppers are now infused with cooling polymer gel for temperature regulation.
This polymer gel has heat-dissipating properties, absorbing body heat and dispersing it throughout the surface of the bed topper. Copper is also often added to the gel, which is known for its natural antiviral and antibacterial properties.
Are cooling gel mattress toppers any good?
Many of our mattress topper recommendations are infused with cooling gel, such as the CopperWELL Mattress Topper and the Lucid Gel Memory Foam Topper. In our Molecule CopperWELL Mattress Topper review, we found this copper gel-infused memory foam topper to be one of the best at offering temperature regulation on par with the best cooling mattresses.
The Lucid Gel Memory Foam Topper also scored high for cooling in our Lucid Gel Memory Foam Mattress Topper review, displaying above-average temperature regulation for the low cost.
However, if adding gel to memory foam is the sole means of temperature control, it won't likely offer the best cooling properties. The best cooling bed toppers use cooling gel in conjunction with other cooling features.
For example, the Lucid Gel Memory Foam Topper's gel-infused foam is also perforated for increased airflow, while the CopperWELL Topper has an open-cell structure for improved heat transfer.
In our experience of reviewing mattress toppers and the best mattresses in a box the models that provided the most advanced cooling were ones that used smart tech or state-of-the-art cooling fabrics. These include Phase Change Material and the cool-touch GlacioTex. Latex mattress toppers are also great at regulating temperature as their naturally breathable, albeit quite expensive.
How much do cooling gel toppers cost?
The upside of cooling gel mattress toppers are that they are much cheaper than cooling bed toppers that use NASA-developed heat-dissipating materials or organic materials such as natural Talalay latex.
You can find plenty of cooling gel mattress toppers with a starting price of under $50 on Amazon, but the best cooling gel mattress toppers will be slightly more expensive.
For example, the average price of a high-quality cooling gel mattress topper in a queen is around $220, while a budget queen-size cooling gel topper is around $70. Meanwhile, the average cost of a queen-sized cooling bed is $1,407, while a queen-size latex topper is $575.
The benefits of a cooling gel mattress topper
✅ They add softness to a hard mattress: The best memory foam mattresses are great for side sleepers as the memory foam provides body-hugging pressure relief to the shoulders and hips. That's why cooling gel toppers are a much more affordable way to soften a firm mattress without buying a memory foam bed.
✅ They offer that memory foam hug without the trapped heat: The cooling gel is infused in a bed topper's foam to dissipate heat, which offsets the heat-trapping tendencies of memory foam.
✅ They're affordable: A cooing gel mattress topper is much more affordable than buying a new bed or investing in a bed topper with more advanced cooling such as GlacioTex, microcoils, or Phase Change Material.
The drawbacks of a cooling gel mattress topper
❌ The temperature regulation isn't the most advanced: While cooling polymer gel does draw body heat away and makes it more refreshing (especially if copper is added into the mix), it isn't the most advanced form of temperature regulation.
❌ They may not be supportive enough for some sleepers: Most cooling gel toppers are made from memory foam and are designed to add softness to beds, but it may be too soft for some front and back sleepers.
❌ They're prone to off-gassing: Most cooling gel mattress toppers are made from memory foam and come in a box, which can lead to some strong off-gassing.
