EP 18 - Satu Pants & DragonWool Deep Dive

Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we live a life? Full

Brigham: of Adventures travel and memories on our terms without being millionaires without previous experience? And without unlimited amounts of time, that's the big question and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm your co-host Tayson and I'm Dave

Tayson: Keim and you're listening to the live ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals. Hey,

Brigham: what's up listeners to live ultralight? Podcast today is not your typical podcast. Today, we actually launched our sock. To pants and dragon will thermals on Kickstarter and it is time to talk about that launch and specifically though about those products as they are not your everyday products, we put a lot of R&D into these products. In fact, we put more R&D into these products. Then anything we have in the past, it kicks here at Outdoor Vitals. They're more proven more tested, more money, invested into the R&D process than anything else we've ever done here and I'm super proud of them. In fact, it's Coming up on 5:00 in the evening, we launched these about 9 a.m. this morning and they've already raised 70,000 dollars in pre-funding people that are backing the project and basically pre-ordering those pants and thermals. And so I'm really excited about that and so I wanted to just take a minute and talk about the design process and specific in particular and what makes them different. You know what truly makes these a new product to the market? Why is there not another product out there? That's like these And, and then how do they, you know, how do they work? What makes like getting down into the Nitty Gritty details of this is what this podcast is going to be about. And that's what I love about podcasts is that we can get into those details. So I have Brigham here on the podcast or lead designer Interestingly enough, I had actually somewhat started on this project before bringing Brigham on and then Brigham was really the one who headed it up from there on out and making sure that we've crossed all our eyes and daughter, all our teas with the design and sampling and sizing. And dialing in features and making sure that we are reinforcing things where they need to be reinforced and that we're we're just making the pant as good as we can. And so and The Thermals specific The Thermals. I don't think I had started on The Thermals really at all, when Brigham had come into play and so he definitely got to see that from start to finish and so, we'll Dive Right into that. I guess we'll go ahead and start with the pant and then we'll move to The Thermals. I'm starting with the pant just because it's a little bit more commonplace for people to need to pan but I just want you to know it's actually kind of bugging me on the campaign right now that there's not a few more backers for thermals for the dragon wool because the dragon will is insanely impressive and I don't want to be little it at all, but we did end up leading with the pant on this project just because there's more people that wear pants more often Etc. And so we do make sure you stay till the end when we talk about Dragon will because it is the most impressive fabric that I've ever seen and used personally. So, But the pants are the same and I used the pants every day. So let's just dial into that. So what I started down this project, I really had one problem that I wanted to solve and that was, I had Warren jeans my whole life. As I had gotten really heavily into backpacking. I had started to wear more comfortable, stretch pants, outdoor pants and they were the performance of them was just phenomenal. I felt better. They were stretch. So like I had a gusseted crotch in their stretchable and so I was just always more flexible in them. I was more comfortable in them. You know, moisture management was better Odor. Control is better. If I was trying to extend, you know, this out, usually they had a dwr coating which been like stain resistance. He was higher. They're just all around better but they they were not the best. Looking things to wear around town. My wife didn't love them, they had cargo Pockets or zip off leggings or whatever. You know, it was, they weren't that stylish and, and not all of them, you know, it's going back to like, the zip-off portion of it. Like, I like to use it off when I had zip offs. That was the only time I like to sip offs every other time. You know? I wish there that zipper wasn't there. Maybe he was rubbing on my knee wrong, or the look of them. I'm just wasn't there? And so it just really I kind of had this conundrum and for me, I'm always trying to minimize my pack. Whether it be for backpacking, whether it be for traveling, whether it be for a weekend, you know, get away with my family or going to visit my parents that live a couple hours away. Anything like that. I just always trying to minimize my gear and that was the problem I wanted to solve. So we went at this and we started to look at what what we could design, that would be different. And the first place I wanted to start is a newly needed. The right fabric so I I started looking into fabric pretty heavily and I had been actually for previous years. I had sourced what some of the other companies out there have been using and I, I wasn't in love with it, but I did fall in love with the idea and, and the concept of minimizing or completely eliminating spandex. and so that kind of led me to a company out of Japan, by the name of Torre, they're really an industry leader in technical Fabrics in the world and They've been phenomenal to work with. Brigham. All. I'll let you kind of step in here and give your piece on maybe Torres Fabrics in particular and what is different or unique about our pant Fabric and I don't just your thoughts on that fabric.

Tayson: Yeah. Well first of all like tasting said Tori is they are awesome to work with and we'll probably get into some of that later. But Um, just know that there's there's a lot of personal communication. Between tasting an i and the people at Torre, it's not at all like a distant conversation. We know these people personally, we've met them face to face and so they're great to work with. The fabric. What's really cool about it is How? It's a very technical fabric. It just doesn't look like it. It looks like something that you'd see on. I don't know if I'd say slacks, but like a more professional attire or a more business like Attire. And it feels that way too

Brigham: feels almost like a cotton. It feels almost like a cotton or like a almost like a khaki or

Tayson: a Chino type like a doctor's fan, you know, but it's actually a software than that. But it's it's light, it's breathable. and it's got a good amount of stretch built into the weave. so, they're able to Make a stretch fabric. That's functionally stretch. It's not just technically stretch, you know. It's not like if you pull it you can see it. Move a little bit. It's

Brigham: functional right now. Like you can pull some Fabrics on What's called the bias, right? So you pull it in a certain direction and it might give some stretch, but really when you pull with, with the yarn, there's no stretch there,

Tayson: right? And so yeah, I think of it as just it's a functional stretch. So when you step on a rock or you climb stairs, whether in the office, or at home, or you get into the car, you bend your knee and you lift it up everything in between their stretches is not just You know, your knee stretches is the custody crotch stretches the back of your thigh stretches with you and it's all done built into the weave of the fabric with, you know, like a mechanical stretch. So spandex free, so really, really impressive

Brigham: Comfort out of this fabric. So let's talk about why why we didn't want Spandex and I'm not and there's kind of two trains here. Honestly, I try to I kind of make spandex the enemy. I don't want to say it's 100% the enemy but there's Very specific reason. We didn't want spandex in these, I didn't want Spandex and these why I was so pulled drawn to this particular Fabric. And and that's simply that that spandex will pull moisture into it and hold moisture. Anything that's going to hold moisture is going to do two things. One, it's gonna stay cold. It's gonna stay colder longer than the alternative that's going to dissipate dissipate. The moisture Two, if it's sweat that it's holding onto, it's going to create odor. Anytime it's, you know, you're holding on to moisture, you're creating opportunity for bacteria to grow, which is what develops into odor. And in fact, is I learned about this, when I was older, I I I'm still down right mad about some of the materials that I use say when I was playing football in high school. you know, I was using To not name any names a stretch fabric that went right on your skin. That was like had to be like 70% spandex. I swear and the label you know what it's supposed to do for you and this is still worn all over. You know, is it supposed to hug your body and its supposed to keep you warm and keep you cool. And do all these different things and more that I've learned about technical Fabrics. That was the biggest lie and I remember freezing, as it got later in the football season in Utah, here. I remember just freezing my butt off. You know, you go out and sweat. I was playing. Let's say is a junior. I was playing defense. Let's play one side of the ball and I would go out there and sweat and come off. And I be on the sidelines for well, the offense is out there and I would get freezing cold, you know? And if I was running, maybe I should back up. And then second I stopped, I'd get freezing cold. My clothes would get wet and it hold onto that moisture. And it was simply because those clothes specially the base layer was wearing was just full of spandex. And so, for me, when I'm talking about Bill, when I wanted to build a pant that was an outdoor functional pant, but they could not develop odor. They could Dry extremely quickly outperform. Other Fabrics out there spandex for me was something that I either want to minimize or eliminate and unfortunately with Torre They're impressive Technologies and abilities that they're able to make things, they're able to mechanically stretch the polyester in the pan so that there is zero spandex in our Sawtooth pan. Like we sum that up. As far as the fabric itself, the fabric itself. We do treat it with a Max spec odor treatment as well as a dwr coating. So the idea of our coating is going to make water bead up and roll off the pant. As well as stains it is a treatment so it's not a permanent treatment and and so keep that in mind as well as the max spec odor treatment. It is a treatment as well which means it's going to eliminate bacteria for as long as it is still on the pant but it is something that over time will slowly dissipate. Now there's ways to apply it back and we'll get into that at other times. But I think what I really want to highlight with this is going back to that fabric. Because that fabric just takes moisture, spreads it out and dries it so fast and doesn't have any spandex in it. I have worn these pants for weeks. On and during testing, I mean I wasn't doing this just to be some creep. I was literally trying to make these pants stink and after weeks of wearing them they just got two dirty and I had to wash them but they did not develop odor and that was actually on a pant that did not even have the max spec odor treatment on it. It was a sample and then I'm gonna I'm just lost my train of thought there, but along with that, I've also been on trips. You know, when I'm out, I've been out in the winter and I'm kneeling in the snow and I'm standing in the snow. I'm walking to the snow and those pants have gotten wet and dried out. Multiple multiple times in a single day and that has just blown me away at the speed at which they can dry out. So, just just the

Tayson: level of

Brigham: Performance out of this fabric is amazing. Whether you're whether you're just traveling multiple days in these pants or whether you're up on, you know, Mountain hiking or whatever. You're doing the fabric, is a performance fabric. So I think that wraps up some of the fabric details. So then we want to take that fabric and we wanted to make it into a pant but very functional pant. And what I wanted to have be a little bit different and what I feel like everyone here at the office. Agreed on is a lot of guys here at the office for wearing outdoor pants on a daily basis. And so I thought like they all so had some of those, you know, feelings that initially started the project with which is, It's nice. If they could wear those pants. And not have their wives criticized them, or their Partners, criticize them or feel out of place certain times and so on and so forth. And so, what we wanted to bring a more Sleek cut Provide a lot of features but anytime we provide a feature, we wanted it to still look good. And I feel like we had a really good mix of that so yeah, I mean what are your thoughts on some of the features? Which where do you want to start? What are some of your favorite features? Brigham, I think I just want to know here as we're doing this podcast. We've raised an additional 2000 dollars in pledges. So just just kind of interesting to watch all. I'll give updates as we go throughout this podcast, but you really ought to jump over to the kickstarter and check it out if you haven't but sorry to cut off the ring. No,

Tayson: you're good. you know, simple things like we have one cargo pocket on the leg. but it's a very Like a slick looking pocket meaning. It's just it's a low volume pocket, it's not meant to to hold a bunch of stuff and that's what I like about it because I don't like keeping a bunch of things in my pockets. And, you know, we are, we're backpacking company like first and foremost. So we always have those things in our mind, but we're all. So making this pant to fit a lot of lifestyle's outside of just, you know, a Backpacker, right? So realizing that people are going to be sitting at a desk or in a car or whatever. Big, bulky Pockets, hanging off their thighs, full of Gears. Pretty, you know, unreasonable. And so, that's one of the things I like about the pocket. It's there. It's functional for like, Real world applications little things that you're going to put in there. You know, when we traveled to, to Vietnam, it's a great place for your passport, for a phone for a wallet. And it's the zipper is flat. It's almost seamless. It feels very smooth. That's a favorite feature. I really like the Crotch, you know, little things. Like

Brigham: if you've never had a gusseted crotch in a pair of pants, which some of our listeners will have not,

Tayson: yeah,

Brigham: that alone will change your life. In fact, there's some pants out there Lululemon has one that's called the ABC pant, it's called the anti ball. Crushing pant and all it really has is a gusseted crotch in a stretch fabric and they sell it for a lot of money. And People Rave about it because they these people, you know, if you haven't ever had like a technical pants that will change their life alone, just having a gusset in the crotch. If it kind of like I like it too. What it's like to wear jeans versus what it's like to wear pajamas. The range of motion increase, so

Tayson: yeah, yeah. I mean we're I mean do we want to go through? I mean I mentioned a couple of

Brigham: yeah

Tayson: that details I like but we can go through. Yeah. Kind of bit by bit and go through them and we know,

Brigham: you know, I'll cover some of some other ones real quick. So my favorite and then we might not cover every single one you might need to go watch, you know, in our video on the campaign or not. Sure and whatnot. But my personal favorite features are the top adjustable waistband. So there's a, there's a very Sleek adjuster on the top of it. You can put a belt around it if you want to like, tuck your

Tayson: shirt in

Brigham: and have a belt showing, so I can kind of disappear but you just, you can eliminate a belt and that's just to me for two reasons, one, when I am backpacking. I had to wear a belt, my hip belt crushes, and pinches my skin. And I'm literally coming off the mountain with welts like pinching my Flabby fat, love handles. You know what I mean? Like I just like in it and it hurts and and I've dealt with that for a lot of years and going to this style of adjuster, I leave my belt at home, my pants, they adjusted and placed the whole time and Way better system. The other thing that I really like on daily basis is when like, I don't know if it's just my body style or what, but when I stand up, I can give them a little snug and they fit me super good and comfortable. I can move around and then when I sit down, because I'm sitting in, you know, in an office for most of the day that I work, and I can just loosen with one little tug on that. I loosen the pant, and now, it's way more loose around my waist. I stand back up, I can tug it and it's tied again. It's just that, that is actually really comfortable to me. And so that's one, it become one of my favorite features and then the big one that I I really thrilled about. Is we have invisible side zip vents? So I mentioned in the beginning that you know, I like to zip off, but at the same time, I didn't like Zip offs for the look and for I've had zip off where like the zippers hitting my knee wrong and it's creating a lot of wear and just different things like that. Well, we've put invisible side zipper vents on the side of the pant that runs right along the scene. And so what happens is the two Fabrics, but right up against each other. So you can't see the zipper And then there's a little tiny head. We went through a few different. Heads zipper heads on here to make sure that it's the most Sleek. Smallest can kind of lay flat against the pan and be unnoticeable, when not in use. And so I've won these around. I've been wearing these for, I don't know, six months almost like on a daily basis, and I've never had anyone comment, or even look funny at those zipper heads, as I've given them to people. I've asked about, you know, like, if they bug, you, if you notice them, no one's ever commented on them. So they're totally like Invisible and unnoticeable until you need to use them. And when I get out and I'm hiking or moving or biking or whatever it is, I can zip those down. In fact, last Saturday, I was out riding motorcycles with some friends and we're cruising along and it got just got hot all of a sudden and I stopped zip those down and had air flow and it just makes a massive massive difference. And so that to me is one of my favorite features. I hate sweating when I don't need to be sweating or getting too hot or create chafing or anything like that and those zipper events can dump heat and create a lot. A lot of comfort that's just holding a noticeable. So those are some of my favorite features. The last one I will call out on the pant is there's an adjustable him at the bottom and you know, different different outdoor pants have adjustable hands but this one is completely hidden. You can't. see it, you can't feel it until you need to use it, then it kind of you can untuck it out of I don't know how to explain this but it's tucked behind a little piece of fabric in the Hem and you untuck it around that piece of fabric and you pull it tight. And that all it up. But what I use it for more is there's gonna be a removable lace clip on there and so I tighten that up around my boot and then I simply slide it down and connect it to my laces and I can leave my Gate. And I use this a lot this winter season and it worked really, really well for me. I mean, just to be 100% Frank with you. I only had it fail one time and it was when we were posting on our winter. Vac not our winter. When we were shed hunting doing a winter trip with the office. We were posting a time, it had slowly come become a little bit looser as we went and eventually on one of the times that I broke through the snow, it pulled it up above the top of my boot and I just retighten it and reset it. But that's the only time I've ever had a fail. And I've used it multiple times in the snow and it's just worked really well for me. I never won my shoes to use it. They might still love their Gators, but honestly, it's allowed me to leave my Gators at home. And so, I have enjoyed that and that's probably the last noticeable feature. I'll talk about on the podcast, the other ones, you can go and look at in the video. So, That's a pretty good overview and deep dive in a certain parts of the pant. Is there anything else Brigham? On the

Tayson: pants in particular that you want to cover. It depends if we're going to kind of start talking about like you know the small details of the design process, I can probably hold it

Brigham: but there's a little things to talk about some of the stuff you pointed out like the double stitching and and some of those things.

Tayson: Yeah. Well you know, I think it helps people to, to kind of to hear from from the source that like the details into these pants. they, they thought out, you know, they don't they really don't just come up because we think it's a great idea out at first we we get a sample you know, our prototype and we look for For failures basically we look for things wrong with it and that goes through several Cycles, you know, and that's kind of how we landed with everything being double stitched. Some places triple stitched at adding a bar tack here because we don't want to have failures, right? So little details, like, The zipper pole on the hip on the hip fence, right? The hit the invisible zipper. You know, that's what those are. The things that kind of excite me, we tweaked the

Brigham: top of that zipper on. Two to three samples to get it. Perfect. Yeah. Where the pocket connects with that invisible zipper. I mean, we were we were tweaking things in there just to make sure that there is that we limited all possibility of failure right there.

Tayson: Yeah, it's a seemingly. Unimportant area, right? But you know when we get the prototypes and we look at them and we wear them and test them. If we think there's going to be an issue, we address it. So we did that in several areas with the pants. You know, there's other little details that are functional that people don't think about the but I get excited about like having two belt loops in the pan as a just one belt loop centered on your back. Not everybody fits a pair of pants perfectly. So people wear belts and that's a pet peeve of mine is when I have a pair of pants that doesn't fit perfectly and I put a belt on and there's just one loop back there. And then, you know, to the side of those, that Loop the pants sagged down. And then I got my belt scrapped from my back and just little things like that. Yeah, I mean, just a lot of the small details that we were able to take the time. To put in, I think they've paid off. They have,

Brigham: we've really covered those details. Well, in every in every way, what I mean by that too, is in the design process, we've covered that and we'll cover this more in a different podcast. But in the manufacturing side, they we partnered with a extremely high-end Factory and I mean walking through their Factory. I just remember the amount of quality control checkpoint stations in that factory was just, Incredible to me. it was just it was you know it was truly an AA plus Factory, compared to anything else, I'd walked in and so Yeah, all those all those details add up. And I think that's where, you know, when it comes specifically talking about like some of the pricing on this like The pricing is extremely fair for what the pants are. Some people may be have not spent this much on a pair of pants. But I'm telling you, this will replace two or three pairs of your pants and Outlast, those two or three pairs. And so, it is literally a bargain. And for what we're able to offer this pan for is, Definitely. like we There's, there's some other pants out there that might use similar fabrics and and, you know, we're not Tories only customer and different things. But if you compare apples to apples, The features in our pant and the level of details that we've covered. There's it's just incredible. one other thing I did want to cover to, on the Pan was the weight of the pant. So we've got listed here on the kickstarter campaign that a 30-30 size pant, weighs 13 ounces, and so they're all. So they're all so really light. They roll up really tight if you're packing them. And and the fabric itself, one thing I did we didn't really cover and I don't remember the soft top of my head, but it is about a 180 gram per square meter weight. So it's actually Pretty lightweight fabric for what it is. And that's part of where we get, you know, down to that 13 Oz, most for reference. Most jeans are going to be between one and two pounds. I've definitely had jeans all the way up to two pounds. Everywhere in between and so 13 Oz, you're under a pound. So they're gonna be quite a bit lighter than any kind of jeans or whatnot out there and then they're just Gonna Roll quite a bit tighter as well. So, Yeah, quality on. These is definitely exceptional for the interest of time. We're going to move on to the dragon wall, which I'm also really excited about. But like just know these pants were stoked about them. We've tested them, we've worn them, we've we've worn them daily, we've worn them on trips. We've we've redone, I don't know how many prototypes we've, we've sizing wise, we've had 60 plus You know, pant pant, alone sizing samples in our possessions sent out to people letting them try them on, giving us feedback, we have meat sizing adjustments. These things, when they hit when they when they get to customers they they're going to be ready to rock. So I'm definitely excited about that and that's and that's been one of the biggest benefits of bringing having Brigham on here is just being able to cross every, I and every t or backwards from what I just said, but it's made a tremendous difference and so I'm still for that. So let's move. Let's move to Dragon Ball because Dragon will 4 isn't getting as much love as I wanted to, but it is a tremendous Fabric and a tremendous product. So, starting off with the problem that we wanted to solve really for me, the problem that existed in the industry was wool was my favorite because it was antimicrobial, which means it doesn't develop odor. And I am a pretty big sweater and so I would use wool a lot. But the thing about being a sweater is you sweat a lot and wool while it's fairly quick. Drying. It is hydrophilic. Meaning it pulls moisture into itself and tends to hold on to it more than a synthetic wood. So one example, one time when I was out, Hiking. I was hiked this same Ridge twice and one day, I wore a 90% Merino wool shirt. High-end Merino, wool shirt and I hiked out of the same spot and I got pretty dang sweaty. My shirt was completely socked. When I got back to my truck, I was really cold. This isn't November. I was really cold and I just decided to keep that shirt on all the way till I got off the mountain. By the time I got off the mountain, my shirt was still very wet, it was still very wet and still very cold. the next day I basically did the same thing in a synthetic shirt of it was 100% polyester shirt and I hiked out. I got sweaty. I didn't get as sweaty when I got to my truck. I was a little sweaty as I drove off the mountain. I was pretty much dry by the time I got there, and I was noticeably warmer because I was dried and that was the benefit of synthetics synthetic is hydro phobic, which means it dissipates out the moisture gives it more surface area to dry quicker. Try to pushes it out of its own fabric and so it's going to just dry faster. And but the problem was that shirt was stinky. Day, whereas the wool was not. And so that was some of the problems that I saw and I wanted to address. And the first thing though, is I was I was just very interested in Merino wool and so I was looking at Marina will manufacturers had been for a while and came across a company by the name of the Merino wool, or new yarn company. And they had some really interesting developments in wool. In fact, our very first face-to-face meeting with New York, was right as Brigham was coming on as an employer. He actually met us at a hotel lobby to meet with the CEO of me and have that conversation. So, bring him tell me something your thoughts on new yarn and why it might be a superior renal.

Tayson: Here, they've also been great to work with as well. And I mean, From from the get-go. So, but, The way that they're able to. Manufacture Fabrics with new yarn from at the yarn level, the way they process, the wool Yarns or make yarn out of processed wool. And they're able to do it in a way that creates a lot more durability and strength as well as Loft. And so even in a thin fabric like, Thin lightweight Merino wool. Most people don't really think about Loft, but Lofts still exists. and so, there are able to get warmer values out of, you know, the same weight of a wool garment anyway and they've really just mastered. Spinning wool and it too, they patented their Technologies and they they are. They are like They're Masters at their craft.

Brigham: Yeah. And

Tayson: they they really put a lot of titles R&D and like we get to reap the benefits.

Brigham: Yeah. yeah, we've always been super impressed with Level of quality and R&D. And The priority of the wool that they're making and so to try to simplify this as much as possible. Think about a fat, like a rope if you've ever tried to undo a rope, you'll see that. There's there's basically clusters of fabric that are woven and spun, so they're spun around and they're braided and they're spun and basically to get it gets smaller and smaller in the same fashion and what happens is they put when you braid something and the braid it again and braid it again you start putting more and more and more attention and torque on those Yarns. so, Merino wool company has a patented way in which they're able to Take 92% of the spin or spirality out of the yarn. So instead of Crossing like just spinning, it and spinning and spinning it, they're able to, like cross it over and cross it back. Which takes that that heavy spinning out of their takes the attention out. And so as you can imagine that's going to allow the Merino wool to one be more lofty and free. And then two it's going to allow it to have more strength because if something's just under really tight pressure and torque, one little pinprick can just make it pop open, right? Is really hard to explain on a podcast but that's that's the technology. That's why it's more lofty. That's why it's more warm. That's why it's more durable. On the list goes on. And so we started to we saw this Advantage this opportunity to, to work with them and the advantages of their company to work with. And so we started to test a few Things. We spent a lot of months actually on a different Reno will piece that you guys won't see for a while. And We're still super excited about the technology is amazing, and it's only can be done with the Merino wool company, but it wasn't quite as you bake. With it was, it was a really warm piece. And a really Unique Piece. But after months of research and development, we've pretty much got it. Nailed down right now. But we had another opportunity fall into her lap. Is there anything you want to say on that? That previous prototype

Tayson: know, I just other than I love it, you know, it's like when it comes out, it will be 100% dialed in. And everybody will love it for what its uses but like you said in my view at it as a very specialty item and it is really good at that specialty

Brigham: and so it will not it will not directly overlap with our Dragon wolf piece know, it'll be for a warmer intended purpose,

Tayson: right? but yeah, it's funny because it's kind of like Grown man being thrown into a giant toy room. Working with new yarn. It's like what that's kind of what happened is. We're just like, wow, look at this. Amazing. Material or whatever, you know. And what can we do with it? And so, that's where we kind of went down that, that road. We're still on that road, but you'll let us do a lot of wool products.

Brigham: Over the coming years with with new Yarns technology. That's that's my prediction. That's our plan's because The application's. I mean you can take a wolf shirt and feel like it's a completely different Wilshire just by using some in the nearest Technologies.

Tayson: Yeah.

Brigham: So yeah, I would agree with that. So anyways, we moved on to a newer fabric, that was brand new to them. And and we started using it. Now I'm gonna tell a quick story here because when I'm interested in time, we need to be quick. But two, I don't have any other place to tell the story, but basically New York had worked with a rugby company. I have all

Tayson: Australia,

Brigham: I believe their name were the dragon backs or something like this. And this company had or this. This Rugby Club had wanted. To wear Merino wool. But the problem with Marina wool and rugby is rugby is really hard on clothing. It's gonna be really hard on Merino wool but they wanted the the odor benefits of Merino wool. They wanted it next to skin because Renault was just comfortable next to skin. It pulls the moisture off. It reduces odor. It's warm. When it needs to be warm and it can cool you and it needs to cool. It's got a lot of really amazing benefits. But the problem was durability was a big factor and you know when you're playing something like Ruby like you're sweating, not just a little, you're sweating a lot and that's when will fail. So, the New York company went hard at work to develop something for this company. And Rugby Club and they came back with Dragon Ball after, I don't know how long I wasn't part of this process, but but believe years worth of R&D. and what they had done is they take in Their Merino wool. And so a, 90 90 plus percent. I think it's 91% Merino wool with a 9% core of nylon, and they took that, and they've used that as an inner fabric essentially, And then what they did is they took a multifilament polyester jersey fabric. So a jersey is, I mean, think of a jersey on a football, like a football jersey or something, it's basically got a lofty weave like a whole week. You could blow through it, really easy and they took this multi-film polyester and put it on the outside of the the wool. For the sake of explaining, it picture them as two different Fabrics, laying on top of each other. and so what happens is, As you sweat the users sweats the Merino wool pulls, the moisture into it because it is hydrophilic. But the problem is, it's going to want to hold on to that moisture. And that's where that multi filament polyester is going to kick in. So multi filament is important because multi filament means that it has more surfaces. It's got smaller Yarns making the polyesters that have like bigger Yarns. It's got these tiny little Yarns and a bunch of them. And that gives it more surface area. More ability to I'm saying this right, you know, use a capillary reaction to pull the moisture into itself and dissipate it and what that does is just creates a really Really fast drying polyester and then because it's woven into that Jersey face. It gets a lot, a lot of airflow across the face of the Jersey. So between those two reactions, you have a pulling effect of pulling the moisture off your skin and then it, dissipating effect and drying effect of the moisture. Getting into that polyester and drying out now. Coming back to it though. The wool and the polyester are 100% woven together at the factory at the Mill. They are not separate Fabrics. Put together later, they are woven together at the exact same time which is a pretty complex process in and of itself to weave two Fabrics together at the same time. Anyways, and so there, you cannot separate these two Fabrics in any way. You cannot pull them apart. You cannot pick them apart anything like that. They're not glued together. There's no chemicals in there. But that's a rough roundabout way of what they did. So they created this amazing. Amazing. Product for rugby team. And then when we, you know, got to come and see this, we're like holy cow. This Is perfect because that's that's essentially what it does. But that's not all the fabric doesn't mean what else, what else can this fabric do? Bring them. Like what what are you excited about this fabric for

Tayson: well? Yeah, and just to reiterate what tastes and says. So to clear up any potential confusion? This is not a two-layer fabric. It is a single Fabric and that's what is amazing about. When new Yarns able to do is they're able to take Nylon core wool Yarns polyester Yarns and knit them in together to create a fabric that on one side. Looks like a different fabric than the polyester on the opposite side, but it's all one fabric. Now that being said, what it's able to do is like taste and said, pull the moisture off your body and then push it through the polyester in the polyester doesn't much. Better job of bringing it to that exterior surface of the Garment and into the atmosphere. It dries four times faster than like, even their own standard 90% Merino Fabric and which is A huge benefit to this. Merino Fabric or times faster like so yeah I mean it's it's so it will okay, so no, it might not dry as fast as like 100% polyester but You know, it's this amazing balance that we're able to get the performance. The Jersey face,

Brigham: I've personally found that the Jersey face because of its construction is Does dry super fast. If you had a really tight-knit polyester, it probably would outperform a tight-knit. Polyester. Yeah, the dragon will with dry faster than the pan. The fabric construction plays huge into

Tayson: breathability, huge, and I don't know if many people pay attention to that, but it absolutely does. But yeah, it's it's, it's amazing in how it Because against your skin is wool, what's a, what's up against your skin? The whole thing may as well be wool. That's not its knit. So the polyester is on the exterior with a jersey face and so you get the performance and by performance of wool, I mean, it Wicks the moisture off your body which is what your base layer is supposed to do and it pushes it through to the polyester which gets it out of here, you know, it just gets it off your body off your garment and if recently well and I and it's it's just just for those of you that haven't had experience with Merino wool, Merino wool is a very fine fine wool. So the Renault that we're using is is the best of the best. That's

Brigham: KRON which is the thickness of the wool and that that skinny very soft wool is the most premium will you can get off of a sheet and It's extremely comfortable against your skin. It's not itchy at all the bigger, the Micron, the more itchy, it can be. So, you know, an 18, 19 Micron, you're still pretty safe. You get into the 200 level. You're gonna start feeling itch, and so, this is at 17.5, which is about the lowest you can get anyone to produce for you. And I've ever seen, I've actually never seen anyone do lower than 17.5, but it, I did ask him about this. I don't remember. He said it's possible but they wouldn't even do it like

Tayson: well, right and that kind of brings up another Thing about Merino wool, is while it has great properties. We've talked about how it holds on to water and doesn't dry out fast and that can be a negative right. But Merino wool is not the most durable fabric, you know, amongst technical Fabrics, it has great properties but it has you know it's more, it will fill up faster, it will you know, wear out faster and that's Know, we don't hide that at all but that's brings me up to the next. Great thing about the fabric is, you know, your skin generally is your skin, it's not abrasive, it's not going to really wear on the fabric So on this on our Dragon Ball stuff, the merinos against your body so it's not really taking much beating right on the outside. Is polyester, polyester is much stronger and more durable and abrasion resistant then Then Merino wool especially a 17.5, Micron Merino wool and so that enables us to use our dragon wall like say the hoodie as just a shirt and not necessarily worry so much that it's going to kind of degrade or wear out. Like, it's just not something we have to worry about. It doesn't mean that it's an indestructible garment but it's just a major benefit of this

Brigham: knit that the second problem that I personally had with options in fact, I remember specifically just going around the office and asking people as we were out on a win on the Wind River hike, I had warned A knee yarn sample. That was, you know, a Merino wool, long sleeve shirt. And some of the other guys had worn a sun shirt and I had said, You know, knowing the properties of like a polyester Sun shirt versus the wool, you know, what would you choose if you could have both in front of you and it was kind of a back and forth, thing different reasons, different perks and different ideas. And then when we were able to get a hold of dragon wool, it was kind of like The ha moment where it's like, this has a 50 UPF rating or higher. but that's as high as we can rate it, I believe and and yet I get Merino wool against my skin. I get odor protection properties. But I don't have. Super, you know, I don't have delicate Merino wool on the exterior so it's more durable. Not probably not as durable as an actual Sun shirt but more durable towards the area of a sunshine shirt. But I get all these extra performance features out of this not just sun protection. Now, I get extra warmth when any extra warmth. I get a faster drying fabric. I get breathability. I get all these different things which kind of these next point that we need to cover with the fabric too. And that's the because it has this outer Jersey face on it. It does. Extremely good job at regulating temperatures. What I mean by that, is, if you wear the dragon wool, let's say you're wearing the hoodie as your one and only base layer. Well, that's a 200 weight, grandfather square, meter Fabric, and at a 200 weight, it's a little bit heavier for like a shirt. Let's say. it's not definitely not heavy for a shirt but it's a little bit more on the heavy side for say shirt, and so, when I wear this on the outside layer, Because that, that weavy, you know, every Jersey faces out there, it feels like it's the the temperature, warmth level of 100 weight or closer to 100 weight shirt level, which is extremely thin for a shirt, like, extremely thin. But then when I put a layer on top of it. So let's say, I throw our Loft tech jacket on top of it. Now, what I'm doing is I'm trapping air inside of all of these little air pockets on the Jersey face, and so the warmth value of the hoodie increases closer to that 200 weight, Performance that you'd want it to when you're trying to get the warmth out of the product. Essentially, it just creates this really, really good Dynamic, where it feels cool when you want it to be cool. It feels warm when you want it to be warm. And that also applies to just moving. If I'm sitting stationary, let's say I put the layer on, I'm in a loft tech jacket. I'm sitting stationary, it's going to lock in a lot more heat than if I start to move and there gets to be a little bit of airflow in my jacket, because that air flow can easily move and breathe on this on this Dragon. So the temperature regulation is extremely big. Whether you're wearing it is the hoodie or whether you're wearing it as the zip-off or the boxers in particular too, with the moisture management and the temperature regulation in the boxers, that's an area where it Impressive.

Tayson: Yeah, that's that's one of the things I like about the Dragon Ball is I kind of a little geeky about textiles, but the way I describe it is with Dragon Ball, you can feel the fabric performing like and that sounds kind of weird. How do you feel that performing but what I mean is, People aren't always. Sweating to the point of soaking out a garment, right? But if you're moving your body, or if you're sitting your body's putting out a little bit of heat and there's there's moisture with that heat. Say you're doing like something you're just walking. Right. You might not be exerting yourself enough to actually perspire you know drops of water but the moisture coming out of your body is increasing because your body's warming up a little bit. And what's cool about the dragon wall is when I say you can feel it performing. You will feel a cooling sensation as you're like, we've, we've both worn it to the gym. We go to the same gym, some days, I'll wear the box or some days, I'll wear the top. Or when I go outside and like do hill climbs, you can feel it performing and like there's no sweat coming off my body. But I can feel the heat being pulled from my body which is a cooling sensation. It's really cool. Yeah, it's it's crazy. Like I've just

Brigham: played that in the gym and I remember one day I was sitting in the office and this is Maybe too much information. I remember sitting in the office and you're sitting at a desk all day. You know, your, I'm your arms are at your side and you're just hands on a keyboard or a mouse. And I remember having this weird feeling, Or I was like, well, my armpit feels colder right now and I like lifted up my arm and I like was kind of looking around for drops and then I realized it was feeling cold because I had started to sweat just a little bit under my armpit and that Dragon will was already starting to perform and kick that moisture out. And that evaporated sensation created a cooling effect that fast. And not like, it wasn't like, I was like you said, I wasn't an overwhelming amount of sweating. It was like, I didn't hadn't even noticed that I was warm, but the dragon will told me. I was warned before I even realized it and that was when I was like this. I mean I knew it was amazing but this is like incredible. You can feel physically like palpably feel the wool working for you. Yeah,

Tayson: it's incredible. Yeah, that again like it's There's all everything is there's trade-offs and everything we do with gear, right? But it just Compensates for so many trade-offs. So like it has so much versatility. Like we've been talking about, so. As a standalone layer. Like consider like, if you were to wear in place of just a t-shirt, right? Which I do a lot that's where it just shines because Of that evaporative effect that cooling effect but as a base layer. So now you have something on top of it. It shines as well because now you've got the warmth of the Merino wool. The loft of the new yarn helping to retain your body heat and then the knit of the fabric itself with the layer over it helps retain your body heat even better. So it's it's really good. Let's

Brigham: compare this to One Last Thing Before we just talked about what we release the Dragon Ball. And why is this? So I feel like this is just super important. Why is our Merino wool? Our Dragon wool different and better? Blended Merino, right? Because you will see all the time people, you know, like you might read on a label like you would even read on our label that it's What? 53%, Merino wool. And then it's got a little bit of nylon

Tayson: a little? Yeah, yes, text. So, technically, it's a, it's a Merino blend, right? Technically. And someone might put that.

Brigham: Yeah, yeah. And I, literally, when I, when my brothers, my brothers will text me and be like, hey, should I get this Merino wool sockets? 60/40 blend. You know what I mean? And and I'll say yes or no. Usually I'm like I usually try to get 70 or you know, whatever it is but like like the but a blend for us is different than a blend for others. And I think that's really important to highlight because a blend for others means that they have a core that is thicker and bigger typically, right? Well,

Tayson: it can like it's important to say, like blend is Broad like yeah. Somebody's blend could be different than somebody else's blend and really it's a very umbrella way of saying it, like you were saying like that that percentage ratio could just be in the core. Some people might actually knit you know nylon alongside Marino that's another Blend or you know if it's just a garment say in a sock the heel could be nylon and the top of the foot could be Marina but But I think what you're getting it is our blend. The way that our fabric is Blended Well, I'll go. I'll let you know

Brigham: I think you're hitting it is our blend is 100% strategic. There are other Blends out there. Do it for cost savings. That do it for. Just to get more strength out of a product even though it lowers performance. So, you know, there might be a sock manufacturer out there that does like a 50/50 blend and they might do it to just increase durability, but the way that their fabric might be set up, it might actually be hurting Odor Control. And and so on so forth. And so what's inch? What's I think what's important to note with our product yes, there is a percentage of polyester and a percentage of wool in our mix, but the way that they are woven together in the way that they work and all of that. it's a better performing wool, and you get If it's not 100%, it's 90% of the same odor, benefits of, as a more, pure Merino wools, and 90% Merino wool product. Because of the way it works, that moisture dries. So quickly that the bacteria can't develop in sweat and start to develop that odor and so on and so forth. And so I just want to point that out like

Tayson: a lot of people.

Brigham: and very generic terms, you know, even like I say like even my brother's something I might be like, hey what, you know, what's a good blend for this and it's like, well, that's Hard to know without knowing more details. Typically, if you're at a discount store, The lower the concentration of Marina will probably the worst you know, it's a rule of thumb but it can all be. It's all depending on how they're weaving it in there. How they're blending it how it's working and so just know that ours might have some differences in percentage. Interesting, well it's not a 90 or 100% Merino wool but yeah this does like That matter because it outperforms 100% Merino, wool product, and 100% real, downsides with with durability and so on, so forth. And so they're always needs to be a blend. Most really quality, let's say like wool shirts are going to be between 80 and 90% Merino wool and then you know, 10 to 20% of a nylon core or something like that. And so, yeah, just know like our Our blend is. Very strategic and extremely high performing.

Tayson: Yeah, we definitely feel that we get the most out of Merino wool. Blending it with other fibers. And it's also cool to point out. Like you know New York is How great they are to work with and the great position that we're in is if we wanted to, we could say, hey we want, we want the, the core, the nylon core of our Merino yarn to be XYZ and they would do it

Brigham: and that with

Tayson: that. So exactly. And we could, we can tweak these numbers to our liking. But the point is, is that where we're at now? It's deliberate. So we didn't, you know, it's not just, we didn't just throw something at the wall and hope it sticks. We have that ability to, you know, in conversations with them to kind of really, just make whatever we want to make.

Brigham: Yeah, last thing I want to talk about with new yarn before we just talked about what we're offering in Dragon Ball and then we'll wrap it up. Here is we're very privileged to be able to work with the yarn. New yarn has turned down, massive companies to work with with companies that they feel like they line like the brands lineup and With this newer Direction about her vitals. I think that we are able to connect with new yarn just at the right time as we were moving and as their moving. And so I do feel very privileged to be able to work with the yarn. I'm very excited to continue to work with them continue to roll out products and Um, the I'll just say like this. I'm so impressed with their stuff and I like them as a company. So much that I'm probably gonna work. Even extra hard to push this stuff out there because I know when you guys get this You will realize how impressive it is. Like I'm you might hear me screaming it from the mountaintops now, going forward, just because I'm so impressed with it and I know that it will change your backpacking experience. Is or your, you know, you're traveling experience or you're working out experiences, like it has them for us. So, so really quickly, I wanted to just cover what? We're offering it in, we've talked about it in the wool hoodie and we've got it in a in underwear, both men and women underwear. And then we all have it in a zip-off thermal. And so just really quickly, I want to touch on that because the zip-off thermal is going to be different than pay anything else you've ever seen a big problem that I personally grew up with and had and bring them still to the stay struggles with is not wanting to wear thermals because it's painful to get them on and off. It, I would lay in my sleeping bag. I'd be like, man, this this just like Should I be cold right now? But not have to worry about taking them off later or should I leave them on right now? Put my pants on, get my boots on. And then as the day, warms up later, I'd have to remove my boots. You know, balance on a rock to try to not get my socks dirty and try to remove my thermals while hiding behind a tree if there's anyone else around. So, you know, it just was a painful experience. And so with the zip offs, you can eliminate all of that. You can literally take them off in 10 seconds. Not remove your boots, anything like that. And so it has allowed me to just stay more consistently comfortable throughout all of my activities. I've worn them to the office. On those cold mornings. Took them off in the bathroom. I have I wear backpacking all the time. They're always with me there. There's a lot of opportunity for those and so that's a really cool piece. The hoodie. Is there anything? You understand that thermals before I? Well,

Tayson: I mean like so all kind of gives some perspective because they're maybe people out there like me like Tasting mentioned. I actually chose to not use Long John's because they're too warm for me. If I'm hiking I never wear. Anything on my pants even winter backpacking. I just don't do it. So what I'm trying to get at is Still have an application because I'm a guy that doesn't like to use them. They're just too warm for me, but I use them in bed or in my sleeping bag, right? I always have long johns in my pack and I use them for sleeping. but so like in a winter camping scenario like we what couple months ago I was able to get ready for bed standing up by the fire, right? So I'm a guy that doesn't even use them. So normally what I'm used to is I'll get in my tent or whatever getting sleeping bag and switch out my pants for my long johns. But you know, in a we were in snow transition that and that's an area. It was cold. So it's really nice to be able to just grab my zip off. Long johns, out of my pack standing right by the fire in the snow and just pull my pants down and zip up the long johns and then hit the sack. So, coming from a guy that doesn't even really like using long johns, Outside of the sleeping bag, they're incredibly useful, just for that one purpose, you know? Like that's Kind of game changing right there, right? And

Brigham: and I'll put out a bold prediction. I had I don't think I've got him to do this yet but I I believe the Brigham will slowly come around to using thermals a little bit more. So we go on, he either too hot.

Tayson: I my legs need no insulation and I'm not fat.

Brigham: Yeah, no, but it is truly impressive. The Thermals the zip off. Once you have them, you can't. I will not look at a thermal that doesn't have a zip-off. Now personally, the hoodie, the hoodie is really impressive, just because it's got a really good hood on it. It's got a little. One-third length zipper. I believe is what it is on the on the front of it and then it's got long sleeves, drop back. Thumb holes in the sleeves for layering up things like that, you know, 50, UPF rating. So, it's great for sun is like a sun hoodie. Just really important piece and then the underwear is also super important. Specially like when you're backpacking or if you're like, doing a lot of traveling, I know for some people, I mean me included the underwear the price tag on them is a little higher than like, what I wear on a daily basis sometimes, but at the same time like if I if I'm traveling where I'm backpacking, man, those things are money because if I'm traveling I can watch them in a hotel. I can rinse them and a hotel sink. You drive by morning and then I can just rotate two pairs of underwears infinitely like indefinitely. And the same basically goes for backpacking on the, you know, sometimes I'll be able to run some. Sometimes I won't but letting them rest for one day cycling. I'm like that, I don't develop odor and then obviously like the temperature regulation. The, the quick drying ability to keep the odor out of there. Like all those things. Just all To just be an amazing performing underwear as well. So that's the offerings on the dragon wall. I just want you guys to know that like the Dragon Ball is freaking amazing. Make sure to pay attention to it. New yarn is amazing. We're really excited to be working with them and hopefully we have more to, to bring By wintertime or later with, with new yarn. But Super stoked for this. Just an update. I started this. We started this podcast. Or did it? Let's see. About it one hour ago and we were at like 69,500 race. We are now wrapping up this podcast at 76000, 600 raised. So what does that like 7,000 dollars in the last hour of people backing and pledging for the pants and the wool? so, People are excited about this. I'm glad that they're understanding how, how big of Game Changers? I feel like these items are both the pants and the dragon will so head over to Kickstarter grab yours while. They're still on VIP pricing, this is going to go out tomorrow morning, so the VIP price will still be available and then we'll still have some special pricing on Kickstarter. You'll definitely want to create it on the kickstarter pricing to produce. These products is no joke when it comes to costs. Um, so the cost of the costs are very high. We're able to pass on huge savings on the kickstarter project. We're also directed consumer which allows us to pass on even greater savings. So we're very, very stoked about the savings were able to pass on to you, but Yeah, these are, these are high-level Performance Products. And so any, any discount helps when you're when you're trying to outfit they are going to eliminate multiple pieces out of your pack which will save you money as well. But yeah, get in on some of this Kickstarter. Pricing be well worth it. So, any last words, Brigham I'm good. Okay, well, thanks for joining us today on the live ultralight podcast. We're super stoked for this if you have any questions reach out to us as support at calm. We're happy to answer questions. Hop on our chat feature on our website and we will catch you on another episode. We do plan to go into a more Deep dive of us when we went to Vietnam and walks in these factories and just talk about how impressed we were with a lot of things there. And and things were excited about with that. So, stay tuned to the podcast, make sure you're subscribe, make sure you leave us a review on the podcast so other people can find it and we will catch you on the next one.