If you've ended up here, there's a fair chance the Origin Hybrid Pro is open in another tab and you're wondering whether the LumbarCloud is worth stretching for. It's the top of the three mattresses Origin makes and sells direct, built for people who like Origin's springy hybrid but want more give at the shoulder. It runs 35cm deep over eleven layers, with a quilted top of cashmere and British wool on a medium-firm core. Get into bed and the first few centimetres are cool and soft, your shoulder settles into the quilting, and only after that does anything firm come up to meet you. Origin is a brand I rate, so I wanted to like this one.
Next to the Origin Hybrid Pro one rung down, the difference that decides it comes to two things: a pillow top stitched on for good, and springs that are all micro springs, where the Pro has a layer of support springs. The cover fabric, the HexaGrid foam, the graphite latex and the edge Origin labels D-3 are the same on both. The plush top is aimed at a side sleeper whose shoulder aches on firmer hybrids, and at anyone who turns over all night. Anyone who sits on the mattress edge to pull their socks on, wants a cover they can wash, or plans to use an adjustable base should walk away now.
Even for those two sleepers, I'd buy the Hybrid Pro. It costs a great deal less from the same shop, its top cover zips off for the washing machine, and there's no fixed pillow top on it to wear down.
Origin LumbarCloud vs Hybrid Pro: the same cover, foam and latex, plus a cashmere pillow top
I'll be upfront: the Hybrid Pro is my own bed, on a king, and I think it's a brilliant mattress. Spec against spec, the Hybrid Pro Origin sells today is 31cm deep with eight layers, seven zones and up to 5,300 springs. The LumbarCloud is 35cm with eleven layers, nine zones and up to 8,700. Both wear PolarSilk Tencel on top, and the trial, the delivery and the guarantee are identical.
Climb the rung and your money goes on the quilted cashmere-and-wool top, four cooling bands, a gel layer Origin calls AstroLift, a layer of memory foam and a third spring layer, with all three layers made of micro springs. You give up a cover you can wash and a sleeping surface with nothing sewn to it. Origin's own grading puts the Hybrid Pro at medium plush and the LumbarCloud at medium firm underneath its top, so the extra softness you're paying for comes from the pillow top alone.
The cashmere quilting is lovely, and it's there for good
The top is made properly, and I'll give it that. It's quilted in cloud-shaped pockets filled with British wool and cashmere inside stretch cotton, under a Tencel cover that's cool to the touch when you slide in. Wool keeps a surface drier than foam does, which helps anyone who runs warm.
It's still a pillow top, and I steer people away from pillow tops whatever they're filled with. The soft top is the part I'd weigh for long-term wear, and because it's stitched on you can't flip it over and begin again. On a one-sided bed with a fixed top, whatever that top becomes is what you sleep on.
Origin does deserve credit on the guarantee. A dip only has to pass one inch (2.54cm) to count as a fault on this bed, and most guarantees I read want two or three centimetres first. It leaves out the foams growing softer with use, though, and the layers sitting right under that quilting are a gel foam and a memory foam. Softening of the top is the change that clause leaves with you, so read it before you decide the guarantee has you covered.
Every one of its up to 8,700 springs is a micro spring
Origin sells the LumbarCloud on one of the highest spring counts in the UK. Count down through the layers and every spring sits in a micro-spring layer: two of them in the middle of the mattress, and a third, which Origin calls PlushTop TitanCore, lower down. Micro springs give a comfort layer a lively, airy bounce, and that's pleasant to lie on. I don't rate them as a reason to spend, and past about 1,500 in a king I stop treating extra springs as extra support.
Going from the Hybrid Pro's up to 5,300 to this bed's up to 8,700 buys one more spring layer and two more zones. To my mind, the extra money would do more for you as deeper wool than as more small springs.
Plush for a couple of centimetres, medium firm underneath
Lie on your side and the quilting gives under your shoulder and hip first. The gel and foam below it slow you down, then the latex and the micro springs stop you sinking any further, and because every spring layer is a micro-spring layer the support comes up gently. So the bed feels plush the moment you touch it and steady once you've settled.
How soft it feels comes down to how far you press through that quilt before the core answers. Under about nine stone and on your side, the top does most of the work and you'll call it soft. A heavier back sleeper presses through the quilting quickly and spends the night on the medium-firm core, which is the better half of this bed for them. Owners split both ways on firmness, and the bigger group found it firmer than they expected. If you're coming off an old, sunken mattress, expect it to feel firm for the first fortnight, which tells you very little about month three.
Combination sleepers are the other good fit. Latex and springs push back quickly, so you roll from your side to your back without climbing out of a hollow first, which suits anyone who changes position all night.
For a bad back, the lumbar zone only helps if it meets your back
Judge a mattress for a sore back by its core, and this core is a good one: medium firm under all that quilting, so your shoulder gets its cushion while the latex and springs keep your waist from sagging. The springs are zoned nine ways, and Origin firms up the centre third of the mattress for your lower back, which is where the Lumbar in the name comes from.
Zones only help when they sit where your body does. If you're well over six foot or barely five foot, ask Origin where the lumbar zone falls before you order. Owners with bad backs mostly love it, and a few say the relief they hoped for never came. A mattress can support a back that hurts, but it can't mend one, so if you wake in pain most mornings, see your GP before you buy another bed.
The soft edge is the owner complaint that counts
The edge is the owner complaint I take most seriously. Owners describe the same thing: sit on the side and it gives way under you, and one found the mattress bulging outward along its length. On any hybrid the edge is where I look first: when it's soft, a double sleeps like a small double, because nobody wants to lie on the strip that tips them out. Origin labels the edge D-3, and a sagging side is the one thing a label can't talk you out of, so a couple who sleep near the sides should go up to a king.
Heat is where owners are happiest. Most who mention temperature sleep cool on it, and the credit goes to the gel foam and the wool before the cool-touch cover or the cooling bands. There's a memory-foam layer in the stack, though, and memory foam warms up under a body that lies still. Overheating wakes me, so if you run hot, that memory-foam layer is worth weighing, and it's one of the layers the Hybrid Pro goes without.
At 35cm it needs deep sheets and two people to rotate it
Buy deep-pocket fitted sheets before it arrives. A standard fitted sheet is cut for roughly 25 to 30cm, and at 35cm (about 14 inches) this mattress is past that, so owners coming from thinner beds have had to replace theirs. It lifts the whole bed higher too, which you'll notice on any morning your knees are stiff. Don't read the extra height as extra support, because what it adds over the Hybrid Pro is a pillow top, gel, memory foam and micro springs.
It has one sleeping side, so you rotate it head to toe every six months and never flip it. A double weighs 41.4kg and a king 48.4kg, about six and a half and seven and a half stone, so rotating it is a job for two. Put it on a flat frame or on slats no more than about 7cm apart, so the bottom layer is held flat from side to side. Origin tells you not to use it on an adjustable base, so don't.
It comes rolled in a box, and Origin allows 48 to 72 hours for it to rise fully. Unroll it with a window open and give it that time before you judge the feel or the smell. Origin's 200-night trial comes with no minimum stay before you send it back, no protector rule, free collection and a full refund, so use it properly. One buying tip: the crossed-out figure beside the price covers the free pillows and protector bundled with it as well as the mattress, so judge the price you'd pay on its own.
What to buy instead
Buy the Origin Hybrid Pro, which Origin sells beside the LumbarCloud for far less. Its top cover zips off for the wash, and there's nothing sewn on top of it. If you'd like more give at the shoulder, put a wool or latex topper on it. A topper you can lift off and replace beats a pillow top you're stuck with.
If you want Origin's build for less again, the Origin Hybrid is the bottom rung: 26cm deep, five zones, a zip-off washable cover and the same trial. It's the one for anyone who wants an Origin without the height.
