Mats Mats Mats (Part 1)

I'm going to start by saying I hate those recipe blogs where someone writes their whole life story before they get to the actual recipe. Like just tell me the freaking recipe. So in an attempt to be better than that, I will offer "quick reviews" in my reviews from now on. And if you wanna read more than that...ok.

Btw this post is about yoga mats, in case it wasn't clear (it probably wasn't). Sorry for the shitty title.

Quick Review

Gaiam 2-Color Yoga Mat: C-. Slip-n-slide, cheap, it belongs to my roommate's dog now.

Alo Warrior Yoga Mat: B. Heavy af, expensive, no slip for one year.

Lolë Air Yoga Mat: D+. Cushioned slip-n-slide, not cheap.

Welcome to my yoga corner and the only place in my apartment that's mildly photogenic

Thanks for reading more I guess! You can stop at any time. Warning: I'm about to go into one of those life story things.

Yoga is everywhere these days. The commercialization of yoga is an interesting topic and something that I have lots of questions and thoughts on, but good or bad or meh, it's definitely led to an abundance of options when it comes to yoga mats. As someone with weak bones/joints and a fear of touching floors/the ground, I choose to practice on a mat, but because I'm also a sweaty person with dry hands, I need a specific type of mat. I don't think I've found the perfect one yet, but I think I may have tried more yoga mats than the average person. And annoyingly enough, it turns out yoga mats are also the kinds of things you can't really return once you've opened them, so I've ended up with quite the collection. Hopefully this saves you some money.

Gaiam 2-Color Yoga Mat

Rating: C-

Don't stare too long or your brain will hurt 🥴

I think everyone who's ever tried yoga has used this mat. You know, the one you can pick up for cheap at your local sporting goods or home goods store. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir with this review, but it's just...not a great mat. It's really thin (Gaiam says it's 4mm but I don't believe them??) and I slip constantly. I slip when my hands are dry and I slip when my hands are sweaty. I honestly used to spend more time in practice worrying about whether I'm going to break my arm(s) using this thing than anything else, and thus, kind of destroying the point of yoga for me. It got a little better once I bought a yoga towel, but I kept having to interrupt my flow to lay out the towel instead of being able to lay it out from the beginning of class because unfortunately I have dry hands and as it turns out, towels keep your hands dry 🤯 Also, yoga towels are EXPENSIVE for what they are: basically a less fluffy bath towel. You hate to hear it.

As you can probably tell, I don't use this mat anymore. I can't deal with the constant fear, so now I just let my roommate's dog sit on it. Here's a picture of him. He's cute 🥰

He loves yoga mats

Overall this mat is fine as a starter mat, if you're not really committing to yoga, or you're just doing it once or twice because your parent, friend, significant other, coworker, etc. is forcing you to go with them. And yeah, this is how I got started in yoga. My parents forced me to go. But now I like it. I hate to hear it.

Alo Warrior Mat

Rating: B

Sunlight not included

If you had asked me to review the Alo Warrior Mat when I first bought it, I probably would have given this thing an A+. It smelled nice right out of the packaging. It came with a free month of Alo Moves. It's 5mm and has great cushioning for my old bones. And most importantly, after months of using my Gaiam starter mat + towel combination, the fact that I no longer had to deal with a towel CHANGED MY LIFE. I'm not exaggerating. I stopped worrying about slipping and actually had proper alignment. I was able to get into WHEEL. As a very scared and unflexible person, that was huge for me.

I loved this mat so much, I didn't care about the not so good aspects. It's heavy af (six pounds is surprisingly heavy to lug around all day) and there's this small quirk I've noticed where my mat turns during practice? It's weird. By the end of practice I'd find my mat had shifted so it's angled to the right - always the right. But I cannot emphasize how much I loved this mat. I still credit it with improving my yoga tenfold and it holds a special place in my heart, which is partly why the hoarder in me will never throw it away (plus apparently it's super bad for the environment, but more on that another day). Unfortunately time has not been kind to it.

I had this mat for about a year when I started noticing slippage again, mostly where my feet go in Down Dog. I take this to mean I really wore it in, but I'm not sure how that happened because I was only practicing a measly 2-3 times a week, sometimes less. At a hefty price of $100, I'm disappointed that this mat hasn't lasted longer. I guess no good thing lasts forever 😢 I'd still recommend this mat, but I'd probably wait for it to go on sale.

Lolë Air Yoga Mat

Rating: D+

I sent my mat away to be recycled so all I have is this stock photo from their website. Obviously the photo does not belong to me.

So I know I said I loved my Alo Warrior Mat, but it was so. damn. heavy. And being the lazy ass I am, I decided after a few months of lugging my Alo mat around that I wanted to see if there were lighter options out there that were just as cushiony for my decrepit body. I‘d heard about Lolë through a friend and I was really excited at the prospect of potentially stumbling upon the "next Lululemon." I really wanted to think that this could be one of those brands that makes high quality stuff that lasts forever, before they're inevitably discovered by the mass public and their quality goes down the toilet.

All that to say, this yoga mat was not my jam. It was light (clocks in at 950 grams according to the website, but as an American I don't know what that means so I'm guesstimating 1.5 pounds?) but that's about the only good thing about it. Oh wait no, I forgot that it's also cushiony. That was nice.

But it was expensive ($65) for what it turned out to be, which is basically a perforated piece of foam. I guess that's how they made it so light. It's a good concept, but it was incredibly slippery to the point I had to start carrying towels again, and also too short and narrow. My feet would always hang off the bottom during Savasana, and I had a hard time doing pushups without putting my hands on the ground (yuck). I used this mat for as long as I could deal with it mentally and physically, but I'm pretty unhappy with this purchase. Save your money and don't buy this mat. There are better options out there.

Oops I thought I wrote a lot for my no-show sock review, but looks like this has beaten my record...of one post. Anyway, I'm tired now, so I'm going to stop my yoga mat review here. But don't you worry, nonexistent reader, I'll be back with more. Coming soon: Liforme and Manduka ✌️