Lululemon The Mat vs Jade Level One: Which One Should You Buy?

The Mat finished fourth of 19 in GearLab’s most recent test with a score of 81, and it’s the mat professional reviewers keep recommending for a mixed practice. It costs $118. The Jade Level One is the entry model from a brand that has been making rubber mats for twenty years, and it costs $66.50.

That’s a $51.50 gap between a mat with a polyurethane top over rubber and a mat that’s simply rubber. The interesting part is how much of what you actually want survives the price cut.

The Mat is 71″ × 26″, the modern default. The Level One is 68″ × 24″, which is the smallest footprint we cover at any price.

Sixty-eight by twenty-four works up to roughly five foot eight. Above that, heels hang off in savasana and hands creep off the front edge in down dog, and 24 inches feels narrow in any wide stance. If you like Jade’s rubber but need room, the fix is inside Jade’s own line: the 74″ Harmony or the 80″ × 28″ Harmony XW, both of which cost more and change this comparison.

Both grip from the first class with nothing to break in, which already separates them from every PVC mat on the market. How they do it differs.

The Mat’s polyurethane face pulls moisture in rather than letting it bead, and GearLab lists “sticky when wet” among its strengths, though its side-by-side wet grip scoring came in at 4.5 out of 10. The Level One’s open-cell rubber also takes on light sweat and keeps its tack, at the cost of needing more washing because the moisture goes into the mat rather than sitting on it.

Practically, both handle a normally damp class and both eventually want a towel in a genuinely heated one. The Mat is the more forgiving of the two once things get wet; the Level One holds better than its price suggests.

GearLab gave The Mat a perfect 10 for comfort and support, which is rare, at 5 mm against the Level One’s 4. On tile or concrete that millimeter shows up under knees and the tops of the feet; on wood or carpet it mostly doesn’t.

The surfaces feel unlike each other. The Mat is smooth and slightly cool, closer to skin than fabric, and it flips over to a textured rubber side for dry practice. The Level One is tacky and firm all the way through, with the slightly grabby quality longtime rubber practitioners look for and newcomers sometimes find strange.

Lululemon lists The Mat at 5.24 pounds and GearLab’s scale read closer to 5.9. The Level One is 4 pounds. Call it one to two pounds in Jade’s favor, and both carry perfectly well.

Neither line offers a strap or bag in the box, and both roll to a normal size. If weight is your main constraint, neither mat is the problem; the oversized versions both brands sell are.

The Mat wears from the top down as the polyurethane gradually loses grip, and GearLab puts the realistic lifespan at four to six years. It also stains where hands and feet land, which is why testers steer buyers toward darker colors.

Natural rubber softens and sheds instead, faster with heavy sweat and daily practice. The paperwork favors Jade clearly: a written one-year warranty excluding sun damage and harsh cleaners, against Lululemon’s Quality Promise, which covers gear that doesn’t perform as designed but names no term and gets handled case by case.

The Level One is USA-made tapped tree rubber with no PVC or synthetic rubber in the build, and Jade plants a tree for every mat sold, past two million by its own count. The Mat uses FSC-certified natural rubber in its base alongside synthetic rubber and the polyurethane top.

Both are latex-bearing, so neither suits a genuine latex allergy; Jade is explicit that its mats are 99% latex free rather than latex free. Care is similar for both: gentle cleaners, no machine washing, no hot cars, no direct sun.

This is where the Jade gets awkward. The Level One comes in Classic Blue and Classic Purple, and one of the two is regularly sold out, so availability may decide this for you. It sells direct from jadeyoga.com.

Lululemon keeps everything inside its own channel too, so The Mat comes from lululemon.com or a store, in around ten colorways that rotate through the seasons. Neither of these is an Amazon purchase, which is unusual for a page at this price range.

Get The Mat if you’re taller than about five foot eight, if you sweat, or if you want the mat that testers rate near the top of the category. It’s bigger, more cushioned, more forgiving when damp, and reversible. Accept the staining, buy a dark color, and plan on four to six years.

Get the Level One if 68 by 24 inches fits you and you want real rubber grip for $51.50 less, with a written warranty and USA manufacturing attached. It’s a lot of mat for the money and a genuinely good introduction to why rubber mats exist. If you outgrow the size, Jade’s Harmony is the natural next step and the closer fight.