Best cooling mattress toppers – how to beat the heat

The best cooling mattress toppers could stop you from overheating at night, whether your disrupted sleep is caused by a not-so-breathable mattress, menopausal night sweats or soaring summer temperatures.

Alongside synthetic bedding, one of the biggest culprits for night-time sweats is a synthetic mattress. Our bodies naturally give off heat and moisture during the night, and with a synthetic mattress, this heat and humidity can be reflected back toward the sleeper rather than dissipating away. 

That’s where the best cooling mattress toppers come into their own, either by increasing airflow or employing thermo-regulating natural materials to wick heat away from the body and cool things down. Great news if you don’t have the budget to invest in one of the best mattresses for hot sleepers right now.

Here, we’ve rounded up the best cooling mattress toppers on the market to help you find the right fit for you. We’ve taken into account performance, price, our testers’ sleep experiences, as well as reviews from happy  – and not-so-happy – owners to find the cooling mattress toppers that really work.

The quick list

Short on time? This quick list is an overview of the very best cooling mattress toppers. You'll find more information on each topper and why our testers recommend it if you keep on scrolling.

Best cooling mattress toppers 2024

Best washable cooling mattress topper

After testing out the Emma Premium mattress and finding herself prone to overheating on its memory foam surface, our reviewer added the Emma Premium Mattress Topper and found its extra breathability a welcome relief. 

The topper is generous 9cm deep, so adds plenty of pressure-relieving comfort, with a graphite coating that the brand says delivers 'optimal temperature regulation'. Our tester certainly found she and her partner slept cooler, with no waking in the middle of the night due to overheating once this topper was on the bed. 

It's an investment, but Emma's 100-night sleep trial offers the opportunity to test out if its temperature regulation works for you before you commit. Plus, if you use Emma mattress discount codes you should be able to get it at a better price.

It's also washable and flippable to help prolong its lifespan, which equals better value for money.

Best natural cooling mattress topper

The 4-5cm deep Woolroom Deluxe Wool Mattress Topper offers a natural and eco-friendly way to achieve a cooler night's sleep. 

This topper harnesses the thermo-regulating powers of wool to create a breathable sleep surface that wicks moisture and heat away from the body during sleep. This enables night-time temperatures to remain stable delivering a deeper undisturbed sleep. 

After finding the synthetic materials in her memory foam mattress were reflecting body heat back towards her and causing her to overheat in the night, our hot-sleeping reviewer tested out this wool layer between her and the mattress, and found it delivered a far more breathable sleep surface that instantly reduced discomfort and night sweats.

A wide range of size options also make this topper a great solution for a too-hard sofa bed to ensure your guests get a better night's sleep.

Best budget buy

Many fans of the 5cm deep Silentnight Airmax Mattress Topper (and there are over 12,000 of them on Amazon) have found it a great companion to a too-warm memory foam mattress, adding heat-relief for a fraction of the cost of other toppers on the market. 

Filled with dual-layered hollowfibre with mesh walls to help breathability and air circulation, this topper doesn't add the comfort of a memory foam or wool topper, but does add a 'breaker' of breathability between your body and a solid foam sleep surface. 

Our reviewer tried this topper for several warm nights over a particularly body-hugging memory foam mattress and found sweat levels were significantly reduced and sleep came more easily.

Plus, it's a great price, coming in as the most affordable cooling mattress topper in our round up.

Best cooling mattress topper for sofa beds

The 5cm deep Panda Topper is primarily designed to add an extra layer of comfort to a too-firm mattress, with the memory foam layer providing cushioning support to pressure points like hips and shoulders. 

However, the 'open-cell' memory foam is formulated to build in a little extra space between the synthetic fibres to allow for airflow as well as comfort. Our reviewer tested this product in late June and although they didn't find it like sleeping in a fridge – you'll definitely need one of the best portable air conditioners for that – nor did they wake up due to overheating or feeling uncomfortably sweaty in the mornings. Not once. A rare feat on any night of the year, but especially impressive in summer.

Because of the wide range of sizes on offer – from single all the way through to emperor, along with a whole host of EU sizes – that also makes this topper our top pick for adding breathable comfort to a sofa bed. Particularly useful as most sofa beds don't have the same sized sleeping areas as a standard mattress. 

Best 'new mattress' alternative

Simba's Hybrid Mattress Topper is an investment, but if you're looking to prolong the life of an old mattress, or to radically upgrade a sofa bed whilst adding breathability, then this topper is the closest you can get to a new mattress, for less.

It differs from most other mattress toppers on the market because it's constructed with a layer of coil springs as well as a memory foam layer. 

That means it's essentially a thinner 7cm deep four-layer version of the brand's bestselling Simba Hybrid mattress, which results in one of the most robust and supportive toppers we've tested and makes this topper the most capable of overhauling your sleep set-up without a full mattress replacement.

The jury is split on the topper's breathability, with one tester finding they slept cooler, but other self-described 'hot sleepers' saying they didn't notice much relief. However, the antislip base and straps are well worth a mention. Most mattress toppers are attached by straps, but in our experience, they're prone to pinging off. The Simba Hybrid Topper straps stayed firm in our testing, but even if they hadn't, the topper was going nowhere thanks to its anti-slip base.

Affordable alternative

One of the most affordable cooling mattress toppers we've come across, the Aidapt Memory Foam Cool Mattress Topper gets rave reviews from customers who rate its comfort, cooling powers, and affordable price tag. 

It's 5cm deep, and a rather unusual shade of blue, but its reversible design offers an 'egg-crate texture' on one side to allow cooling airflow between your body and the mattress whilst also adding an extra layer of cushioning to a firm mattress. 

Gel-infused beads also claim to regulate temperature and help you get a good night's sleep during those hot uncomfortable summer nights, a promise that seems to be delivered according to its 5-star reviews.

The downside is the lack of size options, with only a single and double option available. There's also a lack of cushioning compared to some of the more luxe options in our round up, but then, that's to be expected from the price point.

How to choose

Opting for one of the best cooling mattress toppers on the market means that you'll be adding an extra layer of comfort as well as breathability to your mattress. 

Topper thicknesses tend to begin and 5cm and can go up to 9cm, and the thicker the topper the more comfort it's likely to add to the bed. You can either opt for eco-friendly materials, like wool, that provide natural temperature regulation, or synthetic options like memory foam or hollowfibre that aim to improve breathability via innovative technologies.

In contrast, a cooling mattress protector is much thinner than a topper and won't add much in terms of cushioning comfort, but it will protect your mattress from spillages and sweat on sticky nights, and can provide a breathable barrier between your body and a too-warm mattress.

Whether you opt for a cooling mattress topper or protector, we'd recommend looking for natural materials like wool and cotton. These are particularly useful for adding breathability to a synthetic or memory foam mattress and are generally the more eco-friendly option compared with synthetic mattress toppers.

FAQs

How we test

You'll find full details of the Ideal Home review process on our How We Test page.

Where possible our team of reviewers has tested out the best cooling mattress toppers on the market to find out if they live up to their claims, sleeping on the breathable surfaces during muggy nights and through soaring heatwaves to see which products regulated their night-time temperatures best. 

Where we haven't yet been able to test products in person, we've done thorough research on their technical specifications and read multiple happy – and not-so-happy – customer reviews to narrow down our suggestions to the best-in-class.