Silentnight airmax mattress topper review: An affordable upgrade for beds past their best

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If you find you’re tossing and turning at night, and struggling between the chilly air of no duvet, or the suffocating heat of your duvet – help is at hand, and not where you might expect it.

Silentnight has made a mattress topper that helps air circulate underneath you while you sleep. Designed to bring fresh air in underneath you thanks to mesh sides, the Silentnight airmax should keep your temperature “just so” (a highly scientific term, thanks) all night long.

If sleeping on air seems implausible to you, stick with us. There’s also a thick layer of hollowfibre to provide support. Hollowfibre is a material that is springy and full, yet has plenty of give. This should make it feel comfortable, yes, but also support you in the right position so you don’t wake up with aches and pains.

The idea of a mattress topper is basically to breathe new life into your mattress. Whether your mattress is a bit tired, or you’ve picked up a new ache that seems worse when you wake up, a topper may help. And it’s a whole lot cheaper than replacing your mattress wholesale.

The hypoallergenic Silentnight airmax claims to rejuvenate your existing mattress – but can it actually make that much of a difference?

We tested the Silentnight airmax mattress topper in super kingsize (get us!). We trialled it for more than four weeks – our maths isn’t great, but we reckon that’s about 200-odd hours of sleep.

Comfort was the most important thing for us – did it level up our mattress, or was it just a gimmick? We paid close attention to whether we remained temperate all night long. Were those mesh sides working their magic? And ultimately, did we sleep any better than normal?

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The airmax comes folded up in a bag, and it unfolds nicely. The casing is very soft to touch, and it feels pretty squashy (we’ll stop with these high-tech terms soon). The fillings are held in place by wavy stitching, and this seems to work well. There are thick elasticated straps on each corner, to hook around the mattress. These work well at keeping it in place once you’re sleeping on top of it. We can’t think of anything more annoying than a slippery topper sliding about in the middle of the night.

Would we say it’s 8cm proud? We’re not convinced, and after a few nights of sleeping on it, it certainly isn’t. The fibres get squashed down after a while. You can of course shake it out a bit when you change the sheets, which helps fluff everything up.

We did like that you can stick this topper in the washing machine at 40C and also dry it on low in the tumble dryer. This will be really handy for those with allergies, or if you just want a bit of a freshen up.

The airmax topper does provide a nice layer of comfort. Silentnight says that the topper provides medium tension and is best for average builds. We’d agree with both those statements – it’s certainly not a firm topper, by any stretch.

Having said that, there is a discernible difference between sleeping on the airmax and sleeping on our mattress. It adds an extra level of cosiness and comfort to our night’s sleep. Certainly, we never overheated, so we guess those mesh sides are working their magic.

It perhaps isn’t quite thick enough to soothe our aches and pains, but it doesn’t add to them either. We’d say the support given is adequate on the airmax. If you’re after something to support excellent posture while you sleep you’re better looking elsewhere.