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Edit: It turns out battery-powered heating in clothing actually is used on Mt. Everest: Hotronic makes battery-powered heated insoles that are used by Everest climbers, for example. Battery powered jackets and other types of clothing are also common, but the models I checked only provide warmth for a few hours (e.g. this jacket, which runs 3-10 hours on a ...
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Here is an article that quantifies the heat loss effects of cotton, polyester and polypropylene: Rossi et al., Dry and Wet Heat Transfer Through Clothing Dependent on the Clothing Properties Under Cold Conditions, International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics (JOSE) 2008, Vol. 14, No. 1, 69–76.
Experimental Summary
Here is a rough summary of ...
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Firstly there's the weight issue - as Paparazzi commented, batteries are heavy!
Then there's temperature - battery performance drops considerably in the cold
And finally reliability - if your electrical circuit goes, you will freeze unless you have properly insulated clothing...
so why bother having the batteries at all?
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Your legs aren't as sensitive to temperture extremes. Right now it's winter here and I'm walking around outside with a regular shirt, a wool sweater, and a wind breaker on my torso. Inside I take off the windbreaker an sweater. However, inside or outside, I'm wearing the same single-layer pants and it's not a problem. My legs don't feel hot inside or ...
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Gloves or Mittens?
All things being equal (fabrics, thickness, and insulation), mittens are warmer than gloves. Mitts trap body heat by keeping your fingers together and reducing evaporative heat loss. In frigid temperatures, a layered mitt system is the best choice for warmth. Layers dry faster than one heavily insulated piece, and let you swap out wet ...
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Yes, there have been studies on how much various fabrics insulate when wet and dry. I remember Dr Murray Hamlet mentioning these statistics in one of his lectures on outdoor survival in the cold.
It's been a long time, but I think cotton looses something like 80% of its insulating properties when wet. I may be off on the exact number, but I definitely ...
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They are basically measures for the quality of the down fill.
The 90/10 part refers to the mixture of down and feathers. As down contains nearly no rigid structure, one adds some amount of feathers to give the whole filling some more stability. The example of 90/10 means 90% down, 10% feathers and seems to be quite a typical mixture. I'm not sure about the ...
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One thing you can look into are long-legged thermal underwear - this wouldn't effect how you look on the outside as they go under your clothes and create an insulating layer to help keep you warm. Women can get away with this in everyday life with a nice pair of tights. So for city life, as you stated, this should mean no difference in your every day ...
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Although black clothing absorbs radiation from the sun more than white clothing, this is somewhat offset by the fact that it also emits it more efficiently. Good absorbers are also good emitters. If you're standing in dark shade and the objects in your environment are cooler than the temperature of your clothing, then black clothing will theoretically cause ...
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This is simply a question of the increased surface area of gloves which will therefore increase temperature (heat flux) exchange. Same reason why foxes have smaller ears as further away they are located from the equator. This reduces the heat flux of polar foxes and in this case keeps the body temperature higher. Compared to gloves mittens are therefore ...
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Some general rules:
layer system also for the hands is a good idea but those gardening gloves won't work pretty well
better use inner liner gloves (wool or even a softshell glove) and a warm mitten as the outer layer
to avoid cooling off use hats (again use a layer-system) including a warm winter hat which covers the ears (also see this about heat loss ...
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Make a big fire. This may sound silly and couterintuitive, but the reason is pretty simple.
If you make a small fire you need to put your stuff pretty close to it to have any chance of drying it in a decent amount of time.
And if you put clothes or boots near the fire, then you concretely risk to burn them.
While if you make a bigger fire, your equipment ...
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A lot depends on the climate, on your budget, and on how much you sweat on the move.
Pros and cons of merino
Merino is the king if you want to prevent odour and most people find that it's the most pleasant against the skin. It wicks quite well but holds around 25% more water than synthetics and takes around 50% longer to dry. Another issue is abrasion - if ...
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I'm not sure why pants don't receive the same attention but the layers are available.
You can easily find base, insulating, and shell layers.
Olin's answer gives some good reasons layering pants may not seem as common. In reply:
(2) There are full-side-zip pants for mountaineers (crampons) and wide-opening pants for skiers/boarders and regular boots.
(...
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Nylon, among other synthetics, is an ideal material for clothing for most outdoor pursuits for several reasons. I will use the example of cotton as the traditional fabric for comparison:
Durability: Nylon itself can come in several varieties, some of which are more durable than others due to different weights and weaves. The fabric can handle abrasion, ...
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Besides being the manliest thing you could ever wear outdoors:
Durability
Have you ever had a flannel shirt, or pair of pants? If you have, then odds are you still have them. They are extremely abrasion resistant, and won't melt or burst into flames if a hot coal from the fire lands on them. There's a reason why lumberjacks favoured flannel shirts, and it'...
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Sleeping with the socks on your torso is the most effective method I have found, and it does not require anything you wouldn't already have. For this, you just:
Take socks off
Put them inside your shirt, under all layers of clothing. They should be touching your skin.
Sleep
Wake up in the morning with dry socks.
This works with a lot of things: socks, ...
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The liner acts as a climate control mechanism for your body through a reduction of moisture and an increase in circulation. The synthetic fiber content acts as a wick to pull the moisture away from your skin, while the mesh composition acts as a suspension system that increases airflow by maintaining separation between your skin/undershirt and the remainder ...
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As other people have mentioned mittens are warmer in almost all circumstances, a large part of this is that your entire hand is keeping the inside warm rather than each finger trying to warm itself individually.
Where they fall down is when you need to take your hand out of the mitts, everything from taking photos to having something to eat becomes a chore ...
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This depends on the actual type of clothing and mostly on the wind speed.
The wind evaporates moisture from the body. Since evaporation is a cooling process and absorbs latent heat away from the body, the person feels colder. Skin always has moisture on it. Just like a tree transpires, the human body is constantly having water evaporated from it. Wind ...
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I wear my swimming trunks to the shower. My wife wears a pull over sun dress (light weight, thigh length). We wear our shower shoes, we carry our towels and shower supplies. We usually just take soap and shampoo. The soap is in a small plastic container.
We wear the same clothing both ways. Dressing and other hygiene activities are done when we get back ...
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Filson (C.C. Filson Co.) is a company that sells many types of outdoor hats.
The particular style of hat you pictured in your question goes by several different names.
Here in Canada it is known as a toque or tuque. Even though other terms are in existence up here, the only phrase I really seem to hear up here is toque. Except for Canada the term ...
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In the context of camping, it's perfectly safe to wear a down jacket. Keep in mind that fleece is typically also made from synthetics, and so can be expected to have similar properties to your down jacket. (Actually somewhat worse, given the texture.)
A table of synthetic fiber characteristics at http://www.tensiontech.com/tools_guides/...
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Caveat: Heading out into a blizzard seems an easy way to get killed. Personally I'd only do it in dire situations.
Regarding your layers:
Cotton stores about 27x it's weight in water. This makes it comfortable indoors or in hot weather, but it also means it will act like a swamp cooler once you're no longer throwing off enough heat to keep it warm. ...
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As a beginning skier you will probably be falling down a lot. This means that you are likely to end up covered in snow even if the weather is nice. If you are wearing a soft shell, the snow melting from your body heat is more likely to penetrate the shell and make you cold and uncomfortable. Depending on the local climate, you may also have to worry about ...
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I can totally see your point of view as your coming from forestry or generally working outdoors, but this is fairly straight forward from a hiking point of view:
Hiking is walking, meaning work for your legs. I never had cold legs while walking, but the fairly idle arms get cold much faster. Furthermore, open armpits are an easy entry for rain to your core, ...
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Simply throwing them in the wash should suffice, but if you want to be extra sure the fungus dies, you could soak your socks in a 1 part bleach to 10 parts water mixture for ten minutes. Keep in mind that it's not your socks you need to worry about so much as your shoes, they're a little more difficult to clean. Try changing your insoles out, they make ...
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