EP 31 - Why Knowing Your Insulations WILL Keep You Warmer AND Save You Money! part 1

Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence. So we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time, money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the little tripod cast power, bi Outdoor Vitals. Hey what's up listeners? Welcome to the Live Ultralight podcast and welcome ovibe. We are excited to be starting a podcast that is

Tayson: going to be quite interesting to you. Right now, we've got a title this as why knowing your insulation could keep you from freezing but I think we could title this a million different ways. Why knowing your installations could save you 1 0 0. 0 0, We'll improve your Outdoor Experience and those around you. Why knowing your insulation, you know, maybe maybe why you might have Frozen the past and you never understood why there's million different topics here but they all center

Tayson: around knowing insulation types. The pros, the cons and everything to deal with insulation. So I brought on Brigham. The guy for the job, he knows a ton about installation. We study this together. We visit with the front factories and production, producers of insulation. We look at applications and today. Hopefully when you walk away from this, you're gonna be able to decide and know what is truly good insulation for you and what's marketing hype and then be able to take this knowledge

Tayson: and apply it. So what insulation is going to work best for you and your given application because each of the installations we're going to be talking about likely has some pros and it has some cons and some of them are going to be more suited to your application and some of them are not. So make sure you stay tuned. Listen to all of this and hopefully walk away a much more informed consumer purchaser. And that's what this podcast really is all

Tayson: about is we want to educate you guys and Make sure that you're making very informed decisions. That's why we do what we do. It's part of our what's ingrained in us. Here at our vitals is we want to educate you. That's why our logo is the owl, we believe in an era of smarter consumers, we want you guys to be able to make, highly informed decisions, because let's face it, you guys enjoy learning about this stuff and now you have the

Tayson: ability to you don't have to rely on someone else to tell you which product to buy. You guys can do the research at Fabric level and insulation level and then make a very, very informed decision. So, let's Dive Right In at a super high level. We're going to first talk about Duck and Goose downs. And then even sheeted down insulation for just a half a second. We're gonna talk about synthetics and the variety of synthetics that there are there including things

Tayson: like continuous filament sheet, insulations loose, fill, insulation, stranded, insulations, You guys know, all these under different names which we will talk about specifically, you know, to throw out some names things like like primaloft and pluma fill and APEX climate shield and all sorts of different things. And we're going to talk about those specifically. But first, we're going to start with down. This is definitely where you need to have a basis in your knowledge, because a lot of things get compared to

Tayson: down, because it is kind of the age-old best insulator out there. Have some pros and cons, but Let's start off with duck versus

Tayson: goose. Down Brigham thoughts on Duck vs. Goose down. We're

Brigham: really the main difference is the size of the down cluster. Obviously a goose is a bigger animal than the ducks. So the goose cluster of down is going to be a bigger cluster than duck. in terms of, Warmth. And like, it's all very much the same. It just goes down clusters or they're bigger, they cover more area. There's

Tayson: even talk of European Goose, being bigger than other goose. And so you know, if you want to try to get 900 plus fill power, really you kind of have to go with a European goose in order to make that happen? Which then can put more scarce on it, which you can also see why that's going to affect the price. This isn't something that can just be printed out or man-made and produced a high volume. It's something that is a byproduct of

Tayson: the meat market and so there's limitations on it. In fact, I'm getting I'm already getting off topic here. We're going, but I just was reading about a jacket that I believe it is. Mountain Hardwear is putting out the Thousand fill power goose down and because it's such a scarce commodity, they could only make like a couple thousand jackets period like that's all of the down, they could get their hands on and So that's it. Like, that's all that they can make

Tayson: because They're just a finite resource here. So yes, Goose gonna have a bigger plume compared to a duck, but let's talk a little bit. Well let's let's come back to this. Let's jump over to fill power. And down to feather ratios and then let's come back to really comparing the pros and cons of maybe Duck vs goose and then also pros and cons of just down in general. So fill power for those of you that don't know. This is going to

Tayson: be something that's really important because a lot of people especially like on our website and our customer service team. What happens a lot is people think Phil power, they see the weight there and they think that the fill power is the amount of down in the product, which that's not true. Fill power, is a measurement of the amount of Loft. one ounce or 28 grams of whatever down your measuring, how Much cubic volume, it takes up. So for instance, a 700

Tayson: fill power down, takes up 700, cubic inches of volume for every one ounce of down, measured. However, there are some measuring criteria

Brigham: where they kind of put a weighted

Tayson: a little bit of a weighted. On it and it kind of weighs it down and wait for a minute calculate it. It's interesting, you can find some of the stuff online, but essentially, that's what you're looking at, is the amount of cubic space that that down can take up for every ounce of it. So, giving 900 fill power product. It's going to take up 900 cubic inches of space for every ounce versus a 500. Fill power down. You know, it's 500

Tayson: cubic inches for every ounce. So obviously the higher, the fill power, the less weight of insulation you're going to need down to feder ratios. That's simply just how much Feather compared to down Plum images are in their most people actually think of down as feathers. It's not down, is the cluster. It's a very interesting circular cluster that is actually underneath feathers. And so most people using the higher and downs are using a 90% down to 10% feather ratio. Some people use

Tayson: an 80/20 and even a 7330, and some of the lower end budget downs. But for the most part, you're looking at a 90/10 ratio of downplaying images to every feather or sometimes you'll find even a 95 5 ratio in that. I miss anything there.

Brigham: Don't think so. All right

Tayson: Brigham. So why Let's say you're getting an 800 fill power down jacket. Does it matter whether it's stuck or use?

Brigham: Frankly doesn't really, I don't think it matters that much the. I mean some of the you know, a bigger, a bigger plume, is gonna have maybe the ability to kind of Loft up better. I mean, even coming down to like, there's A duck versus a goose is a different animal. So They're duck. Feathers, have a different smell than goose feathers.

Tayson: that's honestly like the biggest reason that I've heard is that typically, if a goose feather gets wet, there's less odor and not saying that duck. That duck down, has that odor? A lot of acid to do with weights treated. But inherently biologically duck, has a little bit, a little bit more of a smell that can arise when it gets wet others. And that though, this and this is where I think people get confused. If you're comparing an 800 downfield jacket of

Tayson: goose down and 800 down fill jacket of Duck Down, If you're comparing those people think oh the goose down is the better jacket, right? But

Tayson: in reality There's no, there's no backing or science to my knowledge of that. In fact, we had a long conversation with Allied feather about this and they're like, yeah, there's your right like there's not, there's no point if you're using it. If you're gonna be doing an 800 fill power, something like that. There's really no point to go to a goose,

Brigham: right? There's the Numbers, like, the numbers are to me. The numbers are the proof. That there is no difference because they both fill up the same amount of space for the same amount of weight. So there's no pot, like, you can't you can't configure it to where There's no like some magical number that makes because it's a goose it, the fill a 800 cubic inches is 800, cubic inches and 28 grams, 28 grams. The frankly, if it could be like a

Brigham: sparrow down, and it would be tiny, tiny, little cluster. And it would fill up the same amount of space on the way, the same. Yeah.

Brigham: So that's the fill power that. So when does it matter,

Tayson: when does it matter when? When should? When is a like, like right now, for instance, we use duck down in our down jacket. Well, what would make a switch to Goose? I mean, basically wanted to do a 900 or or duck caps out of certain level infill power.

Brigham: That is true, that's where the size of the cluster comes in. So if you want to increase, go to a higher fill power, just like you said it caps out. So like a cat is not necessarily warmer for weight. It just Felt duck down, doesn't get big enough to expand to fill. A volume higher than its cap out Point really

Tayson: correct? So basically, if we wanted to get to an 850 down, it gets really hard and difficult to do that with duck down. That's typically where you start to see switching to Goose, you know, an 825 835, I think you're still, it's still possible with duck. 850 is very borderline and above that. You're pretty much have to use a goose down. So yeah, now you know if you if you're looking at it the 900 chances are it's probably a goose. so,

Tayson: That's a good overview and comparison there. I want to talk some pros and cons of down in general, but I did want to just quickly touch on one thing there's really not been much for Innovation when it comes to down. Yes we will talk later about treatments you know dwr treatments to the down and you know what treatments are out there and what to expect, I guess of those treatments. But the only real installation that I have seen lately has been

Tayson: accompanied, that is making you call thin down, which is basically they're taking down and they're putting it into a sheeted insulation. So you don't have to use baffles to hold the down into place. It's a very, very interesting concept and I've watched it pretty closely but I haven't seen it. Get much traction for some reason, Eddie Bauer I believe was the company that really brought it to Market. They had some kind of an exclusive on it, I believe. And they brought

Tayson: to market for a year to and now it's out of that exclusivity to my knowledge, but I haven't seen anyone really pick up. The sheet it down piece. And I have to imagine that it has to do something with your the losing Loft when you put it into a sheeted because essentially they're gluing it, bonding it somehow together into a sheet and I Can't see how that isn't going to make it lose. Some loss

Brigham: has less ability to fill space, if it's adhered to itself. Mm-hmm.

Tayson: So in, in that retrospect, then I'm not sure what makes it better than aesthetic because you're kind of taking out what makes down so amazing and trying to make it almost more like a synthetic sheeted. Insulation. So that's kind of why we haven't done a lot with it. When we haven't seen a lot of other people do it and then you know, I can't speak and say that this is a marketing gimmick by any means. A very well, could have great

Tayson: application but that's my two cents on why I don't think you're seeing a bunch of it out there. If You have this jacket and you want to let us know how amazing it is. Yeah, reach out to us because I would be interested. I just personally haven't seen much for for views, positive reviews or growth of that type of insulation. All right, let's talk about the pros and the cons of down. Start the pros, Brigham.

Brigham: Well, down house. A very, very high warmth or Loft to wait ratio. so, you can get a really warm. Product for

Tayson: a very low weight. Is it the highest weight to warmth ratio?

Brigham: Trying to think of what would be higher. Between these two it's the highest there's really nothing out there.

Tayson: I don't know my knowledge that is higher warmth the weight however, There is a product out there that claims that it is the warmest. Weight jacket. That's a non down product. It is the micro puff from Patagonia. They claim that as the warmest for the weight jacket that they've ever produced in company history. And so, I did want to just To pick up on this, and we will talk about that installation because it's a remarkable installation later. But I want you

Tayson: to know that it's the insulation is actually not better warmth for weight. It's the application and the light Fabrics that they're using and it's The deleted, all the features off the jacket such as like cord pulls. And Any Carnival extra hardware and flaps and Pockets to the point where they've got the entire package lighter than any down jacket. And the and the warmth is exceptional for what it is. It's a remarkable piece but just make sure you're like again or just

Tayson: trying to educate that you recognize that they're not saying that that insulation has the highest weight Forum 3 show. They're saying that the finished product is Extremely warm for the weight. But there are the downsides to that would be. They've deleted. They've had to delete a lot of features and they've had to use a seven denier fabric. In order to get that insulation to Loft. Maximum ability. And a 790 fabric, obviously is can have downsides in durability but it's a, it's

Tayson: a really cool piece. I just wanted to kind of spit that out there to our knowledge. There's nothing that has a better weight to warmth ratio then down and that is the biggest Pro, right? Because if you're buying a zero degree sleeping bag, a 20 degree, sleeping bag, you know, the better, the weight to warmth ratio of the insulation, you're putting in the bag, the lighter. It is on your on your Back. Right? The other big Pro to down is its

Tayson: extremely compressible. I've never seen anything personally that has been more compressible. Synthetics even loose fill synthetics that will get to later. They Can't, they can't quite match, the compressibility of down and just the durability of down. Down is going to typically have a longer life. Yes, if you can press it for long periods of time, it can definitely damage the down. But one of the ways that I've heard a down company, talk about it is the longer. You keep it compressed

Tayson: the longer, it takes to uncompress the down. So if you can press it for two months, I mean you may let it lay out for weeks before it kind of regains most of what it had. It might take a little bit of damage. But if you store your sleeping bag uncompressed and then you compress it for like the one day, you're backpacking in and you get it right back out. It's gonna bounce back a lot quicker. And so, long term wise,

Tayson: I think there are some benefits to Downs longevity. So you I mean you need to take care of both insulation and not leave it compressed, but yeah. Anything else on the pro side?

Brigham: yeah, I think it's good to point out special in our industry because it is Giant and there's a lot of tons of things that are synthetic and that are great. But one thing I would point out, is it down, you know, it's a natural product. It doesn't the it's not a manufactured product. So there's no there's really no environmental effect. By the existence of a goose a goose down or a duck down now processing. It requires Energy and and some emissions

Brigham: and stuff like that. So it's not like a zero. Environmental effect, end product, but it's significantly less than, you know, petroleum-based synthetic products. I think there's a lot of people out there that would You know, but a lot of value on that. So yes, I'd say that's a pro. Yeah,

Tayson: I would agree. So if we were to then move into the cons, obviously the biggest con that almost everyone is aware of is that you can get down wet enough to wet out. And when it wets out it essentially, clumps up and fails, it loses. Eight Almost 100% of its Loft. It can lose up to 100% of its Loft. Essentially clumps up and then it really can't dry very well. That's kind of the biggest fear with down and the biggest con

Tayson: with down as just that potential fear. Now, have you ever have to happen to you on the trail or in use, Brigham never? Have you ever even on a down jacket with shoulder straps, or like with shell shops on top of down, anything like that?

Brigham: Haven't. I, you know, to be completely transparent. I don't I get too hot so I don't frequently hike with a jacket on whether it's down or synthetic, but I've never, I've never had it happen or seen it happen.

Tayson: Hat. So here's maybe a better question. Has it never happened to you because you are aware and take care of your down. like, is it, is it because of because you Have fear. And you treat it with fear and you or is it mainly just you don't think it would have ever what it out in, whatever application.

Brigham: Um, I definitely wouldn't call it fear. Definitely. I mean because I don't, I don't have a fear of it but I can since I know it's a factor. I just like anything else. If I know something's a factor it's like I'm aware of it. All always. do whatever I can to mitigate it, but the fear or the awareness that down Has that potential for failure? Has not prevented me from using down. That's probably the most.

Tayson: Yeah, I guess your answer. I could give there.

Tayson: Yeah, I guess what I would say is Ah, man, this is this is such a difficult to tackle, but essentially I've never had down, fail on me, like, completely fail on me in real world conditions. It's quite difficult to actually get down to fail. Like it's, it's way more difficult than people think it is. Like, if you have a down sleeping bag or something, take it to your bathtub and try to submerge it. Tried it like fill up your bathroom and

Tayson: try to get it wet. Like you push it under and it pops back out and floats. On the top, you push it under pops back up. The only like, most for the most part, the only way to get that down wet is to essentially compress the down underneath water and then hold it there. While uncompress isn't sucks water into it, and it it's quite a dilemma. Now, that's not the only way you could ever fail out a product, but I'm the

Tayson: resiliency of down as quite High, especially, when you add in the dwr treatments, which you can will talk about a little bit more detail later. However, I can honestly say that I do treat my down products, differently specifically jackets. For those of you to follow us for a while, you've probably heard me talk about the time. I was in Colorado, in November, and I had a down jacket with me. And I had a synthetic jacket with me, and I wore the

Tayson: synthetic jacket constantly, and I almost never put the down jacket on, even though it was crazy cold. It was a blizzard pretty much all I think I was there five or seven days because I just had that fear in the back of my mind constantly. If I put this jacket on, it's gonna get wet from the snow falling and sticking on it and getting moisture. Or when I was, like, actively hiking, I was like, well, sweat in it, and then I'll

Tayson: get it wet that way. And so, I will say that, I typically, even with treated down, have a hard time, treating it, the exact same. However, I've never even been close to having a down product fail on me. So it's kind of a catch-22 there for me. But that is probably the biggest con with down other cons would be if it does somehow get wet. There's the small potential for some odor.

Brigham: Yeah, that's true. And even that like that's kind of Hit or Miss. I feel like it's weird. Like it really it's almost like In the in the same lot of say, Jack as or whatever like man, 10 of them might have an owner, tell them my knot. Um, yeah,

Tayson: I I think that covers the majority of the cons.

Brigham: I would also add some necessarily like a negative con. It's just It's a compared to a synthetic generally down, costs more for kilo, right? So it's it's more costly and then another one with down, it's a loose fill insulation. So it inherently like say you snag your sleeping bag or your jacket. It's very prone to to start dishing itself out of the jacket. So

Tayson: yeah, ditching itself, but also in the making of a product you have to design with baffles in mind, right? Which

Brigham: yeah. Yeah, we should have that, right? So dive into that.

Brigham: well, so to it's a loose fill, it's very light, it's kind of Generally put into sort of slippery fabrics and so it has the ability to slide around whether it's a sleeping bag of jacket, a hat pants, whatever. So in order to stabilize it or keep it in place, so that is evenly distributed on the product. You know, we use baffles or sewing lines to create chambers that are appropriately sized to allow for the maximum Loft. Keep the the down in

Brigham: place. So that's yeah, that's another one because when you so when you add sewing lines or baffles you're punching holes in the product, thousands of holes in the product. So You know, there's there's that aspect and it's it.

Tayson: That makes it sound really bad, it doesn't.

Brigham: And that's why I was just gonna say like, I want to say that but then follow it up with like, Kind of like we're talking about we ever had down. Fail on us, me personally know. There's a pretty well accepted. Process of punching, thousands of holes and sleeping bags, and jackets. That is very well proven without failure. I mean just like the idea that

Brigham: yes, you're poking a hole and now you've introduced a hole which is kind of its like damage basically intentional damage, but does it actually equate to? That piece of product that product is going to. Now be just a massive failure point. No, it's proven to Do that to to still work totally functionally but it's just something another thing to be aware of. Like, yes, it requires sewing through it and some of the byproducts of that are you know, that's areas where

Brigham: moisture can enter the product

Tayson: and then, If it's, if it's a sew through design, it can be as slightly colder spots, essentially, as you don't have insulation on that exact. Selling area. Yep. And

Tayson: the last con, I would say if the baffles is, is simply that You've got a second. Filament, you know, the thread essentially. That could be a failure so you can actually snag it, you holes.

Brigham: Yeah. The yarn or the thread, the

Tayson: thread breaking is more common. I would say then the fabric failing from the hole we are experimenting. With some other Alternatives out there. Well, the alternative you guys, I'm sure have seen is like welded seams On jackets, I don't love it because in order to weld the scene, they have to essentially weld it in like a half a centimeter. Life, essentially, which creates a bigger cold spot where the insulation cannot be. So that hasn't been my favorite. We've never pursued that

Tayson: because of that, but there's some other options out there that, you know, on a year to maybe you'll see. Some things with us there again, never experienced failure. But we always you know, if we find something better we want to be a part of it. So yeah,

Tayson: I think that covers the cons for down and Let's move straight into synthetic because honestly synthetic, it's probably even more to talk about. There's there's more there is just simply more. So yeah,

Tayson: first starters, most synthetic that, you know, I guess how do we Define this Are all set that most 90 plus percent are. All that I know of at least synthetics are polyester strand. Most of them are Hollow. What do you call that a hollow fiber essentially? And so it's a it's a strand of polyester, they they can pull it. And when they create it, they can pull it into different, deniers thicknesses, they can pull it into different. Lengths and and so

Tayson: on and so forth. So, start, I guess into this conversation. There are three different types of insulation, synthetic insulations, that we're going to cover. First being cheated insulation, this is the most common. Format that you find synthetic insulations. It's basically means it comes off of a role. Bonded together, somehow like it sticks together. It's basically just a sheet. Almost like a fabric of insulation that is stuck together. So that's sheet installation. That's what 90.5% of all insulation that you're going to

Tayson: find out there is a sheeted insulation. The next would be a loose fill insulation. Now that would be like, our Loft Tech insulation. So what's in our Loft Tech, jackets is a loose fill synthetic. Essentially, it is polyester, that is created and woven together into a down like plume. So a circular plume looking piece of synthetic, and then you're going to use that more like a down. You're going to have to baffle it, you're going to have to. You know, manage

Tayson: it, I guess because it doesn't hold shape. But there are some advantages as far as

Tayson: being able to get more warmth per weight out of it because now you're creating additional debtor space between the balls of the Fiverr. And so on so forth. So that's sort of covered sheet of insulations loose, fill insulation and the last is stranded insulation. Now, this is something that me and Brigham have actually just started to test and play around with. There are some applications that we are looking at this. It's interesting to say the least most of you guys know

Tayson: this from one of the biggest companies in our space. Patagonia using pluma fill in the micro puff jacket. That's what we were talking about a little bit earlier. But essentially, if you rip that jacket down, A strand of synthetic insulation. How do I even go about explaining this in digital content? It's almost like there's a small rope and they've woven a loose fill synthetic into the Rope. So that, then it Strand of synthetically? Yeah

Brigham: yeah I would think of think of like a really Think about a thin rope. That just looks like it's super super Freight. Like it's just frayed everywhere. Just looks like it has hair like Going every direction from it but you can still see the continuity of it. Like it's just big one long furry looking fuzzy. Yeah. You

Brigham: know and but it's all It's all one piece. That's what's very interesting. Like it's all, it's still all one piece. Yeah.

Tayson: That's it. It's it's a totally different thing than we've ever seen. It's not It's it's an innovation and there's going to be an application for it, which is, which is what we're gonna kind of talk about with all of this stuff. Is there specific applications where different things shine? We're playing with it. We've been in contact with the manufacturer that insulation. And we've I would I would say we're not for sure you're going to use it but definitely I'd say it's

Tayson: no chance. It's a testing,

Brigham: it's in the testing category.

Tayson: Yeah, we'll continue to look for applications for it, but it's, it's hard like it. We've still figuring it out

Brigham: really like, we gotta figure out its capability is what we can do with it. We

Tayson: had one application, we thought would be really good for it. And essentially, in the manufacturing process, we're getting the feedback that this is

Tayson: too hard. We don't think we can use it in the application in a jacket application. Tested it and I'm not. Really impressed that it's better than loftech. In fact I find myself still using Loft Tech but it will keep testing it. And if we find the right application we wouldn't hesitate. To use that stranded insulation in general. So That's kind of one category of explaining synthetics. Second category of explaining synthetics is the length of the fiber that you're actually putting into

Tayson: it. So there's staple fibers and there's a continuous filament. Fiber, a staple fiber is basically a bunch of tiny little sections that they weave and bond together to make up the sheeted insulation. And then you've got a continuous filament which would be just like it sounds one continuous filament wrapping and weaving in. And making that product. Bring help me out here. How that's

Brigham: pretty much it. I mean, so like you're like the any loose fill insulation that's synthetic is going to use staple fibers because it's short. Cut pieces of polyester fiber and continuous film. You know, it's a sheet of insulation with A continuous filament. it I think in the like the explanation of continuous filament, that that like is the word explanation to describe how it is because it is so, you have a 300 yard, roll of insulation. from from end to end, that

Brigham: is one that sheeted insulation is made of Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of filament. Fibers, that are all the same length from so 300 yard roll. Little Fibers are 300 yards long or longer because they could be curled, crimped tweaked, but it's just a giant sheet of fibers that are all the exact same length. And that's, that's why it's called continuous, because there's no break in every, in, in the fibers. There's no shorter fibers that are bonded to make it

Brigham: longer. They're all drawn out to be

Tayson: okay. The same way this is getting technical. Try to keep it as clear as you can here. So let's talk in names of actual insulations out there so probably the most common Continuous filament insulation that we hear about is the APEX climate Shield, right like that?

Brigham: Yeah. I think they, I think. It's interesting because I think I would say primaloft is more prevalent. But it's not necessarily always known for as a continuous filament installation because all primaloft is not continuous filament, it's but climate Shield, APEX like that is there. That's the big. You know, they're not as big of a brand. They don't have as big of a wide of a spread of product, but that's their, that's their big thing is the, The Continuous filament. So, let's

Brigham: just say for a second. We were comparing

Tayson: climate Shield to a primaloft. That was a staple fiber. Let's say it's a primaloft black which is like a lower tier insulation for them. What is going to be the advantage of climate shield in that scenario versus a staple fiber synthetic? I would

Brigham: say the consistency of the sheet. and, With that consistency of the sheet of insulation comes. The most even. Insulation on whatever the product is. So have you.

Tayson: It's been a while since I've studied up on this particular piece. But there's kind of a Pioneer out there. I don't know if I'll name them or not but essentially he uses the climate shield and His claim. Is that a continuous filament synthetic? Dries, I believe a lot faster for some reason. And that it, it has better properties for things like that. And

Tayson: experience that anywhere else. I

Brigham: don't know what you could base the drying off of A staple fiber sheeted. Synthetic insulation. I don't really see where they're going to get faster. Drying times, all other things being equal, Trio treatments. The really the advantage is in the consistency of the insulation. And therefore that also adds to durability meaning. There's not any break in any fibers. So, if certain, if you have Six foot wide sheet of insulation. At some point there's a possibility that there might be You go

Brigham: across the width of the sheet. Say breaks in the fibers, that kind of start lining up. Now, you've got maybe a chance for that, it's insulation to separate over time after being compressed and stretched, but a continuous sheet, insulation way, less opportunity to do that because there's no, there's no break in any of those fibers. So it I'd say it's maybe call it durable just more consistent over time as specialty.

Tayson: I think I would say there is gonna be some advantage to durability and I

Tayson: would say the other thing that that you could probably Lobby for here is with a sheeted, synthetic, you don't know have to baffle it in any way, shape, or form. I would say also that like a climate Shield, a continuous film and product like that, you don't have to do as many baffles like, it has a hero.

Tayson: because of its great consistency because of its Durability and whatnot, it does lend itself to be able to have less baffles. Now I won't say like need zero baffles in any synthetics and stuff. There's there's that comes into design and there's that's a lot deeper conversation, but I would say climate Shield is going to fare better in in a situation where there's a lot less baffles, you know, at all. So that's kind of climate Shield. Let's, let's talk about Synthetic that

Tayson: we're actively testing right now, which is one from Torres. A Japanese fabric company essentially, that is producing the fabrics for our pants or Sawtooth pants. And we're actively testing and installation for them called 3D effects. This is a stretching insulation, it's a sheeted installation at stretching. It is Continuous filament correct program. but they've, but Try to describe what they've done with theirs. That's a little bit different in the way that they get the loft.

Brigham: Yeah, that's kind of kind of two things they use variable fiber thicknesses. so, they're not all the same thickness and then they

Tayson: Hold up variable fiber thickness. That's something I want to touch on. Okay, since you've brought it up, what is that?

Brigham: well, so just think of think of sewing thread. So some thread is thicker than others. This is just on a way, more small scale. So,

Tayson: I mean, things like fiber, right? Like you've got a tendon, a 10-day fabric. Versus a 20 down your fabric. The denier is actually referring to the thread thickness, right? So in a synthetic, what kind of Vineyards are you looking like in an insulation? What kind of dangerous you looking at?

Brigham: I I don't even think they measured in danger, when it down to the like the fiber level, it might be text the text level or maybe that's with wool. But anyway, I mean it's just that the concept is the same, it's just there. Some fibers are thicker than others.

Tayson: I think it is important to explain a little bit here, if you have an insulation. So, so if we back up to a Time backing company history, we had a synthetic called Stormlight Now Stormlight was what you call a mic. We call it a microfiber synthetic because each Fiber inside of Stormlight was under one denier thick. It was about 0.7 denier thick. And we would compare that to a very cheap synthetic. Something that you might find in a bag at a

Tayson: general generic Discount store or something, right back, if you're going to buy a sleeping bag and it's like 50 bucks, something around that like this through a specially through a retailer. Not a direct-to-consumer person. They're likely using a synthetic that is more like a seven. Ten years. It's you. It's robust, it's thick.

Tayson: So with our Stormlight synthetic, we got some advantages because it created more, tiny little air pockets. It performed at a much higher level and have a lot of advantages there but But there are some big advantages to essentially mixing the different deniers because what you get is with a let's say, you gotta 7 denier Fabric or piece of insulation mixed with a sub. sub 1 denier fabric, you can kind of use the strength of the thicker fiber to prop up a

Tayson: smaller fiber, but the smaller fiber can then lock in more dead air space per se And it's going to compress a lot smaller. It's going to be a tighter smaller package, and so that's essentially what 3dfx does, right? They're using different thicknesses of the synthetic. That's a part of how they get the performance, they get out of that installation.

Brigham: Yep. And then the other thing that they do that adds Loft and stretched to the insulation is How would I, how can I call it somehow? Yeah, they it's like a Very just a random spiraling effect. It's not like they all have the same spiral pattern but the fibers just all have this. Twisted spirally.

Tayson: Structure to them, instead of like crimp bending it or something like that, their able to get a more natural. Twist in it, and twist creates additional Loft and stretch

Tayson: and stretch correct. That's, that's probably the biggest part of it. I think that's pretty good, deep, dive on some of that one last thing I will say is Talk about the like being able to bleed through a fabric. Yeah, that's that's another point.

Brigham: So like, if you go back to go back to down, that's another con aside from ripping the product it can, especially if you're not using high quality fabric, it can poke through Usually it's just the feathers, not the actual down clusters, but it can bleed through it completely through Stitch holes depending on the product. But that's another Advantage. So that would be an advantage on like the continuous filament sheeted insulation is like, bleeding really is not an issue. So So we have to treat Fabrics

Tayson: so that down doesn't bleed it bleed through typically on the way, you know.

Tayson: Yeah, yeah. The weights manufactured sometimes that's through a treatment of the like the fabric as far as like a heat treatment where you flatten the fibers sometimes that's just strictly done through coding on it but those Coatings and those treatments are going to reduce breathability so you're down jacket. It's not going to breathe the same as a jacket that you use the license, continuous filament. Because we don't need coating with A continuous filament. Even a staple. Like the staple fiber insulation

Tayson: has a higher probability to bleed through because there's more Loose Ends, we've got to continuous filament, there's no Loose Ends essentially, which then allows you to more or less an untreated Fabric and that's going to allow Heat. Moisture sweat, whatever to to pass through that fabric, a lot easier. All right. So we've talked quite a bit about these. Before we move off of primaloft, let's just talk for briefly about primaloft primaloft for those of you that don't know. Primaloft is kind

Tayson: of the biggest name in the synthetic industry. I would say. They're they're a big, big player, there's like three am you know? But three am I think is not as high-end as, as Primal off the most part they're Their Innovations and stuff aren't as appropriate to high-end outdoor gear. Hey, they're not as focused either know,

Brigham: they're more like each company that does all kinds of other stuff.

Tayson: Totally. Yeah. That's a big part of it. They still probably produce a similar amount of insulation. It's just not for the category we're in as much. I'm off really as the king there within primaloft. They've got a lot going on. They've got different tiers of insulation. So they've got like a primaloft black, which is like their lowest grade insulation, they kind of categorize them until like, Think of as how much you pay for it if you buying a black one, it's

Tayson: probably not that expensive. But if you're buying a silver one, it's gonna be like their second tier like their second best tier when they've got a gold. So like the the Patagonia Nano Puff utilizes, a primaloft gold, which is a very High-end synthetic. It's like they're most expensive line and within that they've got a million products that Branch out a million different ways so it can be very overwhelming but essentially primaloft is just a brand with the million different installations and

Tayson: so you'd really want to do deeper work on knowing okay, what is this insulation? Yes, I know, it's primaloft but what is it is a gold level? Okay, it's gold level. What from their can I learn of it because it's you can't just say it's Primal off, so it's good and it's we just move on from the conversation. Now some of you might ask, why don't you guys ever use primaloft? Because we've, we've never used primaloft to be frank and there's

Tayson: a few reasons for that. I don't want to. More or less primaloft. They're so big that they want, anytime they bring something to Market, they really want to use. In the industry to launch it. So they're going to give exclusives before it ever becomes public knowledge that they've developed something new, they're going to give exclusives to a North Face to a Patagonia to a marmot. you know some something like that Mountain Hardwear, they're going to go and basically have private meetings

Tayson: with all these companies when they release a product for instance, an installation that I did a lot of work with and you may have seen in some previous content from us, was primaloft had a I don't, it was a called Thermo Thermo plume or something like this. It's been it's been so long. I've got the I've got the sampler around here somewhere still but essentially there's a loose fill synthetic but that synthetic was not made public to anyone else but North

Tayson: Face for a year or two after release. So the thermal ball jacket utilize that insulation from primaloft and that was an exclusive done with North Face for a while. And so for us that's tough. We're never gonna get an exclusive. We're way too small to fish right now, to ever be able to capitalize on that. So that's one thing that's against this. The other thing is primaloft charges top dollar for everything they touch. Leave. Because it's Primal often. They've got that

Tayson: brand name. They've been in it long enough that they just get to essentially claimed that. So that's another reason. and, I don't know, I guess, I guess one of the reason that I think of it is like, if it's primaloft Everyone's gonna know about it. And a lot of times for us we're trying to find an edge, not just do whatever else is done. But yeah what? No that's

Brigham: that I think you know good valuable information is that Primaloft makes a great product and they they know what they're doing. They've been in the game for a long time but like tasting said, we With our business structure and the way we do business, we're not able to innovate with them because we've frankly can't get the foot in the door. So we like you said, they can't have

Tayson: a wrap and I talked with him and stuff, but like that's where the lowest on his list of people that he is going to give it really attention to

Brigham: right. And then they're not going to let us into the latest stuff that they're even working on like they would a much larger company. So that's just doesn't really fit our style of. We're trying to find Something that really has like. Something new something, Cutting Edge or Innovative and implement it into our products. It's our gear. And so it just doesn't it just doesn't really fit us very well and you know, and they're the yes, they are expensive. And and you

Brigham: know, on top of the name comes like they have a massive R&D infrastructure, you know. They're like they have a huge staff of People developing new or working on new developments all the time. So I mean that that money has to bring up a bill to pay for that. So What

Tayson: will we ever work with them? We forgot to do this, to exclaimer. I think at the first, yeah. We

Tayson: ever work with primaloft Brigham.

Brigham: Don't know. Like it's I think that's yeah we can talk about that now or we can I

Tayson: would say there's a good possibility that we're going to work with primaloft so we're not trying to we're

Tayson: just saying why we haven't used them yet and that goes with all of this. any, any installation we have talked about insulation, we will talk about just Because we haven't used it yet. Does not mean, we will not find the correct application and pair it up at the right time with the right Focus. So just know that just know that like everything everything is set up a disclaimer. Because you never know what's going to come next and you never know what,

Tayson: ideas? Going to connect the dots next,

Brigham: exactly. And really, that's why we're doing the podcast is Because it's just as much. This relates to us as a business, as it does to the consumer, you know? it's because we as a brand need to be thinking about all these things, Internally for our own developments. So yeah. Just like just like you said, there's a good chance we could work with it. It's just we haven't to this point and That translates to the customer to the, to the listener, too.

Brigham: Like just just because you haven't used something up until this point, don't rule it out in the future and just because you use something. You know or you have historically used something up to this point. Don't rule out something else. Yeah, glad we glad you remember that.

Tayson: Yeah. Hey everybody, this is tasting again and really quick. I wanted to invite you to join, probably the best thing that we've ever put out which is the Live Ultralight membership, buying and affording gear is arguably. The biggest reason that people don't get out and truly enjoy nature. You want to go but you don't trust your gear. It can't handle the expected, weather, or temperature ranges, or you simply don't have the right gear in the first place at all. That's exactly

Tayson: why we created the liberal Choice membership. It works a lot, like a simple savings account for your gear. You simply Auto load 10 dollars, with store credit into your account every month, and you get instant access to year-round discounts, you get free priority, shipping and prioritize shipping. By the way, early access to New Gear, the world releasing or early access to sells that are going on. You can get limited edition gear. You're going to get expert coaching, and access to the

Tayson: obtained inside our closed, Facebook group, which is also gated not, anyone can join this, right? And something very, very cool where you can now get our most vetted, our favorite gear from other brands that we're now putting on the website. But members are going to At additional discounts and instant rebates. So, for instance, if you wanted that new cation, water filter that we've been talking about a ton lately, you can get it with your membership credits and you're also gonna be

Tayson: able to get it with a membership discount and an instant store credit rebate, that's just Auto added to your account. After checkup, this membership has too many amazing things to cover. So what I want to recommend you do right now is stop everything. Pause this audio head over to Outer vitals.com forward slash membership to sign up and start building your credit. We're going to release some new products in there really soon at Big discounts. So go sign up today at outer

Tayson: vitals.com forward slash membership, and we will catch up inside the closed, Facebook group after that we can continue this conversation over there. It really quick. This episode got a little bit long because the depth of everything that we went into and we're talking about so we ended up breaking this into two parts. We are going to be releasing the second part of this in about a week's time, but this is a great opportunity for you to make sure you are subscribed

Tayson: to the podcast so that you can get notified. When part two comes out where we're going to continue to dive deeper into all this and hopefully keep you warmer on the trail. Save you money, when you go to purchase different insulation layers and overall, just make you a better Backpackers. So make sure you subscribe and we will see you on part two.