Lululemon The Mat vs Hugger Mugger Earth Elements: Which One Should You Buy?

OutdoorGearLab tested both of these in its current nineteen mat lineup and scored Lululemon’s The Mat 81 out of 100 against 70 for the Hugger Mugger Earth Elements. The Lululemon took a Top Pick award for mixed fitness routines. The Hugger Mugger came ninth without one.

They are both 5 mm thick and that is where the similarity stops. The Mat is a rubber slab with an absorbent polyurethane face at $118. The Earth Elements is sealed TPE foam at $74, and it weighs less than half as much.

The Lululemon is the better mat for practising on. Whether it is the better mat for you comes down to sweat, carrying, and a latex allergy.

The Mat won comfort and support outright with a 10 out of 10, one of only two perfect scores in the test, against 7 for the Hugger Mugger. It also took grip 7 to 6. Those two categories carry 65 percent of the weighting between them, which is the whole gap.

The Earth Elements won care and cleaning 9 to 7, and its 9 was the joint best score in the lineup. They tied on materials at 7. GearLab’s cons for the Lululemon were contains latex, stains easily, needs deep cleans, and may lose grip with use. For the Hugger Mugger they were durability concerns, squishy for balance postures, and mediocre wet grip.

Both mats cushion, but not in the same way. The Mat has a dense natural rubber body, so the 5 mm gives back without collapsing. You get padding under a knee and a floor that still feels like a floor under a standing leg. That combination is what earned the perfect score.

The Earth Elements is foam, and it compresses further under a concentrated load. Kneeling and seated work feel plusher on it than on almost anything at this price. One legged balances feel less settled, which is exactly what squishy for balance postures means in GearLab’s cons list.

If your practice is mostly restorative, yin, or floor based, the softer mat is genuinely the more comfortable one. If it is standing sequences and inversions, the firmer one is doing something the foam cannot.

The Mat’s polyurethane face absorbs moisture instead of shedding it, which is why GearLab’s pros for it include absorbs sweat and sticky when wet. Its own wet grip measurement for the mat was 4.5 out of 10, against 6.5 dry. Both of those are on the low side of the test. Read the pros list and the number together: the surface does take on sweat and does keep working for a while, and it is not one of the grippier mats GearLab measured either way.

There is no wet or dry split published for the Earth Elements, only the overall grip score of 6 and mediocre wet grip in its cons. Its sealed TPE cannot absorb anything, so sweat pools on the surface.

Neither of these is the answer for a hot room. The only mat in the test that held above 8 when wet was the Manduka GRP Adapt 2.0, and the Liforme Classic at 7.

Lululemon lists The Mat at 5.2 pounds and GearLab measured 5.9. The Earth Elements is 2.4 pounds on Hugger Mugger’s spec and measured 2.2, which made it one of the two lightest full size mats in the test.

Five pounds is carryable. It is also noticeable on a walk to the studio, on a bike, or up three flights of stairs, and it is the kind of thing that quietly decides how often a mat leaves the house. The Hugger Mugger goes into a tote bag and you forget about it.

The Mat is 71″ × 26″. The Earth Elements is 72″ × 24″. So the Lululemon buys you two extra inches of width and gives up an inch of length.

Width is the one people notice. At 24 inches your hands find the edge in a wide legged forward fold or a long down dog, and 26 inches fixes that. Length only matters if you are tall enough to run out of mat, and at 71 inches The Mat is short for anyone over about six feet. Lululemon sells The Big Mat at 84″ × 28″ for that. Hugger Mugger sells the Earth Elements in one size only.

An absorbent top takes in body oils along with sweat, so stains easily and needs deep cleans both appear in The Mat’s cons. Owners report darkened patches under the hands and feet within the first year, and Lululemon’s own care advice is to wipe it after each use and let it dry flat before rolling.

The Earth Elements is closed cell TPE. Nothing soaks in, so a damp cloth is the whole routine. That is most of why it tied for the best care and cleaning score in the test.

The related worry is grip loss. May lose grip with use is in GearLab’s cons for The Mat, and it is a known pattern with polyurethane faces: the surface glazes over time and the tack fades. Cleaning it properly slows that down rather than preventing it.

The Mat is 55 percent natural rubber by Lululemon’s own materials breakdown, and contains latex is the first item in GearLab’s cons list for it. Natural rubber is latex. If yours is a real allergy rather than a preference, the mat is off the table.

The Earth Elements is TPE with no rubber content at all, which makes it one of the more comfortable latex free options that is not thin PVC. The other obvious ones are the Manduka X in denser TPE and the Manduka PROlite in dense PVC.

The gap is $44 at list. Lululemon does not discount The Mat much and does not sell it on Amazon, so shop.lululemon.com is effectively the price. The Earth Elements is on Amazon, where the list price is worth checking before buying direct.

For that money you get the better cushion, two more inches of width, a surface that handles moderate sweat, and a mat that will hold up longer. What you give up is three pounds of carry, easy cleaning, a latex free build, and $44. Lululemon backs The Mat with a Quality Promise that has no stated term; Hugger Mugger offers no warranty at all, only 30 day returns on unused mats.

Buy The Mat if you practise regularly, want the best cushioning in this price bracket, and the mat mostly lives at home or travels in a car. It scored higher for good reasons, and the width is worth more than the spec sheet suggests.

Buy the Earth Elements if you carry your mat, if your practice leans gentle and floor based, if you have a latex allergy, or if $44 is better spent on classes. It is a legitimately good mat that happened to be tested against better ones, and it is the easier of the two to own.