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

Lululemon’s The Mat is a lot of people’s first serious mat: 5 mm, reversible, a polyurethane top over a natural rubber base, and $118. The Jade Voyager is 1.6 mm of natural rubber at $49.95, built to fold flat and go in a bag. On almost every spec, the more expensive mat wins by a wide margin.

The exception is grip, and it goes the other way. OutdoorGearLab rated the Voyager 9 of 10 dry and 7 wet. They rated The Mat 6.5 and 4.5. That is a $68 travel mat out-gripping a $118 studio mat in both conditions, which is worth understanding before you spend either amount.

The Voyager’s surface is open-cell natural rubber, the same compound Jade puts on its full-size mats. It is tacky the second you unfold it, with nothing to break in and nothing to wait for. GearLab’s 9 of 10 puts it level with mats costing three times as much.

The Mat works differently. Its polyurethane top is smooth and designed to absorb, so it does its best work once there is a little moisture in it. Dry and new, it can feel slick, which is the most common complaint in owner reviews, and GearLab’s 6.5 reflects that. Their wet score of 4.5 is the harder number to defend at this price: absorption helps, but the surface itself does not have much bite once sweat is running. Lululemon still took a Top Pick award for mixed fitness routines, on the strength of comfort rather than traction.

Weight feeds into this more than the scores suggest. The Mat has enough mass to lie flat and stay put on any floor. The Voyager has none, so on deep carpet owners report it sliding and bunching under a planted foot, while on hard floors it behaves perfectly. That is worth knowing if the room you would use it in is carpeted, because it is the one situation where a grip rating stops describing what actually happens.

GearLab gave The Mat a perfect 10 for comfort and support, one of only two mats in a 19 mat field to earn it. Five millimeters of rubber under a polyurethane skin is enough to kneel on tile without flinching and enough to hold a forearm plank without thinking about the floor. It is a genuinely comfortable mat and that is most of why it ranked 4th overall at 81 of 100.

The Voyager scored 2. At 1.6 mm there is nothing between you and whatever it is lying on. On a wood floor it is a grip layer, not a cushion, and every pose with a bone against the ground needs a blanket or a folded towel. On carpet, or over a studio’s rental mat, none of that applies and it feels fine. The mat is honest about what it is; buyers just have to be honest with themselves about where they practice.

Neither of these is a closed-cell mat, so sweat goes into the surface rather than pooling on top. On The Mat that is the design: the top layer pulls moisture down, which is why it works in a warm room even with a middling wet grip score. On the Voyager it is a property of open-cell rubber, and it does help the mat hold damp hands.

The cost is the same for both. They have to dry fully before they get rolled or folded, or they develop the smell that absorbent mats develop. GearLab scored The Mat 7 of 10 for care and cleaning and the Voyager 8. Wipe both with diluted mild soap on a cloth, no machine washing, and give the Voyager real drying time before it goes back in a suitcase.

Lululemon lists The Mat at 5.2 pounds and GearLab measured 5.9, which is mid-pack. It rolls into a normal mat roll and carries fine to a class down the street. It does not go in a suitcase without giving up a lot of the suitcase.

The Voyager is about 1.5pounds by Jade’s count and 1.8 on GearLab’s scale, and it folds rather than rolls, so it lies flat along the bottom of a bag. Jade compares the folded size to a yoga block. That format is the whole reason to buy it, and the tradeoff is creases along the fold lines over the years.

The Mat is 71 by 26 inches, standard in both directions. Lululemon also sells The Big Mat at 84 by 28 inches if you want more room, which is a real difference rather than a marketing size.

Jade offers the Voyager in a single size,68 by 24 inches, across five colorways. That is at the short end of standard, and it is worth noting that travel mats are not usually where you want to be short. Anyone tall will hang off the ends in a long lunge.

Neither brand offers a wider version of these particular mats. Lululemon’s extra width lives only in The Big Mat, and Jade puts its wide sizes in the Harmony line rather than in travel mats. If a 24 inch surface is already tight for you, the Voyager will feel tighter still once you are working on an unfamiliar floor.

The Mat’s polyurethane top is the wear surface. It scuffs, it stains, and heavy practice takes the finish off the areas where hands and feet land. Lululemon backs it with its general Quality Promise, which has no set term and is handled case by case, so it is a good returns policy rather than a warranty.

The Voyager is thin rubber, which fails differently. It loses tack slowly, tears at the edges if it gets caught, and takes permanent creases where it folds. Jade covers it for one year and excludes sun damage and harsh cleaners, and it plants a tree for every mat sold. Neither of these is a decade mat the way a dense PVC mat can be; if that is the goal, our Manduka PRO vs Jade Voyager comparison covers the mat that is.

$118 against $49.95, a gap of about $68. Neither brand runs an Amazon storefront for these mats. Lululemon sells The Mat through its own site and stores, which at least means you can return it somewhere with a door. Third-party sources routinely list The Mat below its real price; the US list is $118.

The Voyager comes from jadeyoga.com or a yoga retailer, and its price holds steady. These are not really competing purchases, so value comparisons only make sense if you are choosing your single mat, and in that case The Mat is the one that can carry the job.

The Mat is built to be used on either face. The polyurethane side is the one Lululemon expects you to practice on: absorbent and smooth. The other side is textured natural rubber, offered as the grippier option for lower-sweat sessions and for standing work on slick floors. It is a real feature, and a reason some owners prefer it to single-sided mats at the same money.

In practice most people pick a side in the first week and stay there. The rubber face is firmer and less forgiving under a knee, and once the polyurethane face has taken on a little sweat it is the better surface for most classes. Treat reversibility as insurance rather than as two mats in one. The Voyager has no equivalent. It is one rubber surface, with a scrim visible through the underside, which is what lets a sheet that thin survive repeated folding.

Buy The Mat if this is your one mat. It is comfortable in a way the Voyager cannot be, it handles a warm room, and it is easy to buy and return. Go in knowing its grip is the weak spot: if you sweat heavily, plan on a towel, because a 4.5 of 10 wet score at $118 is the part of this mat that disappoints people.

Buy the Voyager as the mat that travels while a different one stays home. It grips better than The Mat, weighs a quarter as much, costs $68 less, and asks you to accept a floor under you. If you want alignment guides and grip in a package that still packs, our Voyager vs Liforme comparison covers the premium end of the same question.