Hugger Mugger Earth Elements vs Gaiam Premium 6mm: Which One Should You Buy?

The Gaiam Premium is the mat you find in every sporting goods aisle and the one OutdoorGearLab gave its Best Buy award to as a first yoga mat. It scored 62 out of 100. The Hugger Mugger Earth Elements costs $44 more and scored 70, ninth of nineteen.

Eight points is a real gap but not a large one, and both mats are soft, light, closed cell, and honest about being comfortable rather than grippy. The question is whether what the Hugger Mugger does better is worth roughly two and a half times the money.

Comfort and support 7 to 6.5. Grip 6 to 5. Materials 7 to 6. Care and cleaning 9 to 8, where the Earth Elements tied for the best score in the test. None of those margins is huge on its own, and they all point the same direction.

GearLab’s cons for the Gaiam were slippery wet grip, cushion compresses, and moderate durability. For the Earth Elements they were durability concerns, squishy for balance postures, and mediocre wet grip. Read those side by side and the two mats have more or less the same weaknesses, with the Gaiam’s slightly worse.

The Gaiam is latex free PVC. The Earth Elements is TPE. Both are plastics and both are latex free, so anyone shopping because of a rubber allergy can take either.

TPE is the newer material and avoids the phthalate and plasticiser questions that follow PVC around. It is also lighter for the same volume and it does not carry the vinyl smell a new Gaiam has for the first week or two. Neither is recyclable in any practical sense despite what the marketing implies, and neither holds a third party certification.

That is most of the materials score gap. It is a mild preference, not a reason on its own to spend $44 more.

The Gaiam is 6 mm and the Earth Elements is 5 mm, so the cheaper mat is the thicker one. It still scored lower on comfort, and cushion compresses is why. Gaiam’s foam bottoms out under a knee or an elbow fairly quickly, so the extra millimetre does not do what the number suggests.

The Earth Elements holds its loft better through a session. Plush comfort leads its pros list and testers picked out seated postures, yin, and long holds specifically.

Both mats are soft enough that standing balances feel less settled than they would on rubber. Neither one fixes that for the other.

GearLab measured the Gaiam at 6 out of 10 dry and 4 wet. The Earth Elements has no published wet or dry split, only an overall grip score of 6 against the Gaiam’s 5, and mediocre wet grip in its cons.

Both work with dry hands in a cool room and both give up when your palms are damp, because sealed surfaces have nowhere to put moisture. If you sweat at all, budget for a mat towel on top of either one and treat that as part of the price.

If grip is actually the thing you want, neither of these is the purchase. The IUGA at $67 took GearLab’s Best Value Upgrade award with 8 dry and 7 wet, which is a different class of performance for about the same money as the Hugger Mugger.

72″ against 68″, both at 24″ wide. The Gaiam is on the old 68 inch standard, which leaves anyone over about five foot ten with heels or hands off the end in a long down dog.

If you are shorter than that it makes no difference at all. If you are taller it is worth more than most of the score gap, because a mat you keep sliding up and down to stay on is a daily irritation.

2.4 pounds against 3.3, and GearLab measured 2.2 and 3.3. The Hugger Mugger is lighter and the Gaiam is not heavy. Portable is in the Gaiam’s pros list too.

A pound favours the Earth Elements and neither mat is going to be the reason you leave the house without one. This is not where the money goes.

This is the one place the pricing runs backwards. Gaiam covers the Premium with a lifetime guarantee. Hugger Mugger offers no warranty on the Earth Elements at all, and returns only on unused mats bought direct, which means once you have practised on it you are on your own.

Do not read too much into it. A lifetime guarantee on a $30 PVC mat covers manufacturing defects rather than the cushion flattening, which is what actually ends a Gaiam’s life. Both mats drew durability comments in testing and both are a couple of years of regular practice rather than a decade.

It does mean the risk of buying the Gaiam is close to nothing, which matters when the whole argument for the Hugger Mugger is a modest improvement in every category.

A slightly better cushion that holds up longer through a class, a slightly better grip that still is not good, four inches of length, a pound off the carry, an easier surface to clean, and TPE instead of PVC. That is a real list and none of it is transformative.

The Gaiam is a genuinely good first mat and the Earth Elements is a genuinely good second one, and both sit below the point where a mat starts solving the grip problem. Check current pricing on the Hugger Mugger and the Gaiam, because the Gaiam in particular discounts often and the gap can be wider than list suggests.

Buy the Gaiam Premium if this is your first mat, if you are not sure yet how much you will practise, or if you are tighter than five foot ten. It is the Best Buy award winner, it costs $29.98, and it is enough mat to find out what you actually want next.

Buy the Hugger Mugger Earth Elements if you already practise regularly, want a softer floor for seated and restorative work, and need the extra four inches of length. It beat the Gaiam in every scored category and it is the nicer mat to own. If what you really want is traction, spend the same money on the IUGA instead and get something both of these lack.