It's miserable waking up warm, and a sprung bed sold on keeping you cool is a natural one to reach for. The Sleepeezee Cool Refresh 2300 is a traditional sprung bed at Mattress Online, sold to people who wake up warm: a pillow top sewn over two decks of pocket springs, with a thin sheet of gel foam tucked inside the top and a knitted cover that feels cold when you lay a hand on it. In Sleepeezee's Cool Refresh range it's the middle rung, softer than the flat, Firm Sleepeezee Cool Refresh 1600 Pocket Mattress and firmer than the Sleepeezee Cool Refresh 3200 Pocket Pillow Top Mattress, which has a pillow top too.
It has gone by three names at Mattress Online since 2019, Cooler Supreme 1800, then Cool Rest 1800, and now Cool Refresh 2300, and every one of them has had the word cool in it. At first the top is all you notice. Soft polyester fibre and the gel give under your shoulder and hip, a dense fibre layer and a deck of mini springs come next, and the full-size pocket springs at the bottom stop you going any further. It's a cushioned, middle-of-the-road Medium, and comfortable is the first word owners reach for.
Couples get on well with it, since every spring sits in its own pocket and somebody rolling over next to you hardly registers, and so does anyone of middling build who sleeps face up or curled on one side and wants cushioning over the springs. One owner summed it up as "Cool comfortable and don't feel partner moving next to you". If you're buying it to sleep cold, walk away now. Front sleepers should too, because a padded top lets your hips drop and your lower back arch.
I wouldn't buy it. The cool you're paying for lives mostly in your fingertips, the number on the label is mostly mini springs, and the pillow top is the one part of a mattress I'd least like to be stuck with. Sleepeezee's own Sleepeezee Graphite Echo 2300 Pocket Mattress sits on the same shelf at Mattress Online with the same Medium grade and a flat top, so put your money there.
Cool when you touch it, ordinary once the bed is made
In fairness to the build, there's a 2cm layer of Sleepeezee's Staycool gel foam in here, and gel foam is the cooling idea I back, because it makes a small difference. On this bed it sits inside the pillow top under a layer of polyester, so what touches your skin is the knitted cover. That cover is what feels chilly when you press it in a shop or on delivery day.
Then you make the bed. Most owners who mention the sheet say the same thing: lovely to the touch, less so once the fitted sheet goes on. One put it in a single line: "In practice once the protection cover is fitted the cool effect is lost." The happiest owners talk about heatwaves, hot weather and a top that's cool to touch. The disappointed ones bought it to stop overheating at night and found it no different from any other mattress, and one couple with a zero-tog duvet and a cool bedroom had more night sweats on it than before.
So treat the cool as a touch effect and buy on that basis or not at all. If heat wakes you, the room and the duvet are your levers: a bedroom around 18C and a lighter tog do more than any cover. My other answer for hot sleepers is springs under natural fibres, and this bed is polyester, gel foam and synthetic white fibre from the cover down.
The trial needs a protector, and the protector cancels the cool
To keep the 100-Night Comfort Trial, you have to buy a Mattress Online protector in the same order, and a protector is the layer owners say ends the cold feel. I'm no fan of protectors at the best of times, since they get between you and a mattress that's meant to breathe. On a bed sold on how its surface feels, it's like buying a convertible and being told to keep the roof up.
Buy the protector anyway, because the trial is worth having on a pillow top, and judge the cooling with it fitted, since that's how you'll sleep on it for years. What the trial gives you is an exchange for a different mattress, with no money back, and only after a month of nights on this one.
2,300 springs, and 1,500 of them are minis
The 2300 is a king-size count: 800 full-size pocket springs at the bottom and 1,500 mini springs in a layer above them. Under its first name it had the same 800 under 1,000 minis. The number on the label went up by five hundred, and all five hundred are minis.
The base is decent. Those 800 are proper pocket springs in their own fabric pockets, and the three outer rows use a thicker wire to stiffen the edge. Still, I count 800 full-height springs as light for holding up a whole king, and the 1,500 minis over them are comfort padding, not support. I don't mind minis as such. What I mind is a headline that climbs on the back of them, so compare the 800 with other beds, not the 2,300.
A padded top over a firmer middle, sewn on for good
Both Sleepeezee and Mattress Online grade it Medium, and owners pull both ways. One says flatly it's "not medium firm" and quite soft, while an owner with arthritis in their back calls it nice and firm. Your weight decides which you get: a light body stays up in the padding, and a heavy one goes through to the springs. One owner at 6ft 2 and 17 stone says it gives good support, and that comes from the springs underneath.
The top is my problem with it. That padding goes on softening with use, and with only one sleeping face there's no second side to take its turn. The part that gives first is the part you lie on every night, for as long as you own it, so I steer people away from pillow tops generally. Putting cool in the name doesn't change the construction.
Before you lean on the longer guarantee, ask Mattress Online what depth of dip it would count as a fault, because Sleepeezee's terms call ordinary settling of the fillings normal, and a flattening pillow top looks a lot like ordinary settling.
Happy owners, on the 32cm bed that came before
The owners are fond of this mattress and say so warmly. One couple's back pain eased after the switch. An owner with hot flushes says it has helped loads, and another's mum, who lives with chronic pain, sleeps more settled on it. A dip where you sleep is the complaint that would worry me, and I couldn't find an owner reporting one. Their grumbles are cooling, a slippery top, soft sides and the weight. Picture who wrote them: people on their backs or sides who wanted padding over the springs, which is exactly who a pillow top pleases at first.
Most of the reviews are for the previous model, though. The bed they describe was 32cm deep, with 1,000 minis and half the guarantee it carries now. The one on sale is 27cm (about 10.6 inches) with 1,500 minis and the thicker-wire edge. So trust them on the feel, which the sewn-on top and the cool cover still give you, and judge the slimmer build on what's in it.
Sheets slide, the old edge was soft, and it's a heavy bed to turn
The knitted top is slippery. Owners say fitted sheets won't stay put on it, and one who marked it down for little else wrote "The top is incredibly slippery, bedding just seems to slide off". Buy fitted sheets with elastic all the way round the skirt, which grip the underside far better than corner straps.
Owners of the older bed wanted firmer sides. One missed support round the very edges, and another found the side walls didn't feel sturdy. Those thicker outer rows are a sensible answer. A soft edge turns a double into something narrower, which is why I look at the sides of any bed for two before anything else. In your first month, sit on the side the way you would to pull your socks on, and if it tips you forward, claim the exchange as soon as the month is up.
It's heavy, too. Owners call it a job to turn at 49kg for a double and 55kg for a king, though one managed alone with the handles. You never flip it, because only the top face is padded. Spin it head to foot instead, weekly while it's new and monthly after that, and tug the padded top square again after each move. Slide it by the handles and never lift it by them.
Flat-topped Sleepeezees from the same shelf
Buy the Sleepeezee Graphite Echo 2300 Pocket Mattress from Mattress Online. Same maker, same shop, the same Medium grade, and it's flat on top: graphite memory foam, reflex foam and a layer of mini springs, with no pillow top to wear in where you lie. It's 28cm deep, has air vents in the border, carries the same length of guarantee, and comes in a small double, a size the Cool Refresh isn't sold in.
It won't sleep cold either. Memory foam keeps your warmth whatever goes into it, and graphite is a small help, nothing more. Its 2,300 counts minis as well, so my reason to choose it is the flat top, never the count. Hot sleepers on it should do what I'd tell them on any bed: cool room, lighter duvet.
If you liked the gel idea and want firmer, the Cool Refresh 1600 is the flat, Firm rung of the same range, also sold by Mattress Online, with no sewn-on top to flatten.
