Gaiam Premium 6mm vs Retrospec Solana 1″: Which One Should You Buy?

The Solana 1″ is four times thicker than the Gaiam Premium: 25.4 mm of NBR foam against 6 mm of PVC. It is also ten dollars more, at $39.99 against $29.98.

So the cheaper mat here is the one built for yoga and the pricier one is built for floor work. That flips the usual budget-mat argument, and it makes this a straightforward decision once you know what you actually do on a mat.

GearLab scored the Premium 6mm 62 out of 100 in its 2026 round of 19 mats and gave it the Best First Mat award. The sub-scores are worth reading rather than the headline: 6.5 for comfort and support, 6 for materials, 8 for care and cleaning, and grip of 6 dry and 4 wet.

None of that is good in absolute terms. What the award is saying is that nothing about the mat is bad enough to ruin a beginner year in a cool room, at a price where a lot of mats are.

GearLab does not test Retrospec at all, so the Solana has no equivalent number. That is not a mark against it, but it does mean everything below about the Solana comes from its material and from owner reports rather than from a lab.

An inch of soft foam compresses under a heel and keeps moving while you try to hold still. On the Solana, tree and warrior three feel like balancing on a mattress, and that is not a flaw in the product so much as a consequence of buying an inch of foam.

The Gaiam at 6 mm sits close enough to the floor that your ankle gets honest feedback. Every studio mat we would recommend lives between 4 and 6 mm for exactly this reason.

Six millimetres of PVC over a hardwood floor is still hard on a kneecap. It is better than 4 mm and much worse than an inch. If your knees are the reason you are shopping, the Gaiam will not solve them.

The Solana will. A full inch of NBR is genuinely comfortable kneeling, lying down, or doing anything on your elbows, and that is the whole case for it.

The Gaiam has a slightly tacky textured finish that holds a dry palm reasonably well. GearLab measured it 6 out of 10 dry and 4 wet, so a sweaty class is not its environment either.

The Solana grips through a ribbed pattern pressed into the foam, which is mechanical rather than tacky. It works dry and it stops working damp, the same as the Gaiam does, so neither is the mat to take to a heated room.

72″ against the Gaiam Premium’s 68″, both at 24″ wide. Sixty eight inches is short: it leaves anyone over about five foot eight with heels or a head off the end in savasana.

If length matters to you and you want the thinner mat anyway, the Gaiam Essentials is the same 6 mm at 72 inches for less money. It is the obvious answer to this specific complaint.

Neither material is a selling point. The Gaiam is PVC, latex-free and easy to clean, and also the material most environmental criticism of yoga mats is pointed at. GearLab gave it 6 out of 10 for materials and 8 for care and cleaning.

NBR is a nitrile foam, closed cell so sweat sits on top, light and soft and cheap to make. It is the standard material for gym and camping pads. Neither mat carries a third-party certification and neither claims one.

The Gaiam’s sticky finish wears smooth where hands and feet land, and once it is smooth the grip is gone. Daily practice gets you somewhere between one and two years before that shows.

The Solana dents. Knees and elbows leave impressions that recover overnight at first and gradually stop recovering. Neither is a mat you will still be using in five years, and both are priced with that understood.

Gaiam puts a lifetime guarantee on the Premium. Retrospec gives the Solana 6 months against defects plus 30 days to return it.

Both cover manufacturing faults. Neither covers a topcoat worn smooth or foam that has taken a set, which are the two things that will actually end these mats. The longer promise sits on the cheaper product, and it does not change what either mat is worth.

Buy the Gaiam Premium if you are doing yoga. It is cheaper, it is the only one of the two with an independent test result, and 6 mm is the thickness the practice is designed around. Check the current price before you order; it moves by colorway.

Buy the Solana 1″ if kneeling is what hurts, or if the mat is really for stretching, physio and floor work with some yoga on top. Check its price here. Just do not expect to balance well on it.