00:00:14 Speaker 1: All right, welcome back to gear Talk. We've got my co host, he Honest patel Us on, myself, Jordan Bud and then we have a special guest, Heidi Allen from nick Wax is on and we're gonna dive into all things gear care. So I really appreciate you hopping on, Heidi. Yeah, no worries. Uh. Like I said, I always love chatting about gear care. So I'm just really excited to be here with you all today and nerd out on how to extend life of your outdoor clothing, footwear and equipment. Yeah, we we love it. Can you give a little background for listeners on just I guess your background in some of these things, like coming from nick Wax and and your roll at nick Wacks and all that. Absolutely. Yes, So I've been I've been with nick Wacks for just over fourteen years now. Um. Started when I was a young un and worked my way up in the North American office. I've I've done all sorts of things for the company. Um. I really, I've been there for so long because I just love helping people extend the life of their outdoor gear. I came to nick Wacks from kind of the the outdoor industry guiding. UM ran my own little gear shop for a while, so just seen seen different elements of the outdoor and outdoor adjacent industries. We did a little program at nick Wacks a while back that we called gear Rehab where people could send in a piece of gear one piece of year per person for a year, and we would clean them and rewater proof them and send them back. And I personally cleaned hundreds and hundreds of pieces of gear during that program. So I've had some pretty intense hand on experience as as well as you know working in the in the corporate minds. So what happened to that program? Uh uh, you know, it was a little bit labor intensive doing all that gear care. Um, it was great while lasted, but I think in the end I would prefer teaching people how to care for their own gear then doing it for them. You know, I'm I can't be everyone's mom, uh. I want people to be able to do it on their own. So uh yeah, but it did afformed me with a great amount of practical kind of knowledge and know how and my teammates that helped me out at the time. Also, we're ready to move on from it, let's say once, so we wrapped it up. That makes sense. Hey, before we jump into how to take care of gear, just tell us I want to know what you do, because I didn't ask you this when we chatted prior to the interview. What do you do outdoors for fun? Like? What are your main escapes outside? Yeah, you know it's shifted throughout the years. I kind of started in more with the rock climbing side of things, and uh went into a bunch of snowboarding, and then in as I'm getting older and want to deal with less crowds, Uh, I've taken up fly fishing and surfing, which are kind of two of my main activities at the moment. Well around well, you know we live in Washington. There's tons of awesome stuff to do out here outside. Okay, Well, let's dive in. We're gonna start with outerwear. And when when we say outerwear, we're talking mostly about uh, water proof, water resistant garments like raine jackets, maybe soft shell jackets that have a durable water repellent d w R finish on them, uh, pants of the same nature, et cetera. So anything that you're mostly trying to keep the weather off of you is what we mean by outerwear before we jump into how to treat it. Though, there's been a chat in the industry, just general outer where industry. It's not limited to hunting and fishing, but there's a The durable water repellent finish it's on your outer aware is going through some changes and it's because of what it was made out of, what um was found out about, like the chemicals that they used to make it and so, and it's basically bad for us, it's bad for the environment, et cetera. I'm here to learn more about that. Heidi is going to explain sort of the changes in DWR that have happened over the last couple of decades. Is that a good setup, HEDI? Yeah, I think that that sounds right right on the nose. Um. We can dive in a little bit too as to what dw R is and how it kind of helps with your waterproof garments too. I think that would be great for folks. I mean, I'm sure everyone knows just exactly what it is. Yeah, let's start with that and then we'll talk about how it's changing. Yeah, So, yeah, what the heck is dw R anyway? And why is it important. So uh, as you mentioned, you already called it out. D w R stands for durable water repellency, and it's that coating that exists on the outside of rain jackets, e jackets, even tense backpacks, hiking boots, basically any piece of clothing or outdoor gear where the water forms little we call them beads on the surface that allows the water to roll off and not absorb into the outer fabric. Now this is really important because all of those items, we want them to be waterproof, breathable, so d w R won't be on things that are not designed to be breathable. So you're, you know, kind of your slicker raincoats, you're rubber fishing boots, those sorts of things. Those aren't designed to be breathable, so they don't need to employ uh dw R coating. Uh d w R does exist on items that use mem brains, so more nerdy talk, but gortex is probably the best known membrane on the market, and membranes are generally fused to an outer fabric and sometimes also to an inner fabric, depending on the layer of the jacket and a membrane. It works by allowing the water vapor, so your sweat um from your body or water vapor coming off of your body to escape UM, but also prevents water droplets of coming through because the molecules of water vapor are smaller than water as a liquid woo um. However, exciting stuff um with these membranes, because they are fused to that outer fabric, they need d w R on the outside for them to work as effectively as possible, because if that outer fabric absorbs water and gets wet, then the moisture vapor from inside can't escape, that can't get through that water barrier. So basically you're really nice jacket turns into more like a garbage bag feeling thing thing jacket. Uh. Also, if that outer fabric is wet, it's going to make you feel a lot colder and clammi er um. It's going to bring down the temperature of your body by wearing a big, heavy, wet thing. So DWR does those two great things. It keeps, you know, your jacket from being a big soggy, wet mess, but it also helps maintain the breathe ability. And that's really what we're paying for with these really great pieces of gear piety. If I can interrupt. I think it's it's important to note so every understands too, that the d w R is a finish. It's it's not a layer. It's it's it's not like the gortex, it's not the membrane, it's not the outer nylon. It's literally like a chemical treatment finish that is applied to the outside, right correct, Yes, uh, it is exactly that, um. And there's different types for sure, but yeah, pretty much all of its applied to the exterior of the jacket as a finish. And we like to say it's a d w R because it is durable, but it's not a permanent finish. Um, it's not, you know, permanently bound to the jacket. So that's a great call out. Absolutely. Okay, so that's what it is. Let's jump into the I didn't even have it in my notes, so I'm gonna mess it up. But the p f C s right. Yes, So that's what it is, and now we can talk about what is it made out of. So right now we're talking about factory applied d w R codings, things that are applied to fabrics, leather, everything at the factory level. UM. So back in the day. UM. What this d w R was. We used what was called a C eight, which was an eight carbon chain UM technology and it was super durable and this this kind of finish. It's something that was used in Teflon pans as well as rain jackets. And you might remember the kerfuffle around Teflon a while ago. That was around the same time that globally we started moving away from C eight because we found out that while it is extremely durable, it does a great job at repelling water and oil. Unfortunately, it is extremely persistent in the environment. It bioaccumulates, so that means it builds up in the human body and other creatures, and when it does that, it causes all sorts of health problems, cancer, reproductive issues, the the whole shebang. So we moved away from C eight because again, while it was great at repelling water, was not so great for all those reasons. Uh, And so the the industry went to C six again talking about factory applied d w R UM, which was a six chain H so a little bit less durable. Oh. That started happening around between teen twenty ish it started taking effect UM so not a super long time ago. UM in the scheme of things, and people did notice a little bit of a difference UM in the durability of that water repellent coading on their gear. Again, because that chain is shorter, it just wasn't quite as tenacious, but the intent was that it was also not as tenaciously persistent in the environment. UM. So yeah, that's kind of the story up until now. UM. However, very recently this fall, UH quite a few states have started with California, have decided that they're going to outlaw all use of UM p fas p F A S which is the family of all of the p f C s UM and they don't want to use any of them in apparel or household good cosmetics and so by most outdoor brands are going to be moving away from uh these PFC d w rs and that's going to it's been shaking things up a little bit. UM. Brands are looking to find solutions to apply to jackets. They want, you know, their customers to be happy and and dry and still able to go out and play on the outdoors and be comfortable. But it's taking a little bit of of ingenuity and a lot of research to try to find a good alternative yeah, is there an alternative? There are a couple, but not a lot. Um, and that's what the scramble is happening. Uh. The industry always we always kind of knew I say the industry, I mean any you know, kind of apparel, footwear, equipment manufacturer, outdoor industry, hunting industry, etcetera. Uh, clarify that, Um, we always knew that there's going to be a move away from these chemicals, but there was never really a very clear timeline set and so a lot of brands kind of had their ow timelines, you know. And then this legislation hit and it accelerated the process to a point where there's there's a scramble to find a solution that can integrate effectively with a lot of the different manufacturing processes. So, uh, that's going on. I'm not like the foremost expert in uh in all of the factory applied technologies that exist on the market, but as an aftercare brand, we are hoping to be able to support our brand partners in the transition. And then we're also um excited about technology that exists out there that's free of these u P fast chemicals because they're they're not good for people in the environment. And that's why we've never used them. UM, we don't really believe that they're they're great. So yeah, well, thank thy. That is not an easy thing to explain. I think you did a good job. Thank you for that. UM. I was unaware, but I did some research after we did a little had a little chat pre podcast a couple of weeks ago, and so I did a little research about what First Light was doing for this. They have a new what they're calling, um like a green d w R that's not a C six, it's called R three. UM. They tested it against the C six stuff and just quickly so you can see what First Lights doing, and I'm guessing that the competitors are doing the same thing. But in they're testing it said that all C six tests were substantially worse than the R three in water repellency and water absorption. In the Bundessman rain shower test, uh C six performed lower on hydrostatic head. Don't know what that means. Maybe you can film it in on that heidi UM the results were still high, but lower than the R three. R three showed better, more consistent peeling resistance through more washes, than the C six X, indicating better lamination strength and laminate waterproof durability. Um. And that was pretty much it from their notes. So, uh, First Light should be shouting off the rooftops. I think if it's it's true what you're saying, Hoid, that it's a big problem and people haven't found a solution because according to the crew over there, uh and catch them, they have a solution. So I'll be interested to hear from people. Uh, you know, please you know, right right into gear talk at the meat Eater, or join us on the on the podcasts page, in the in the forum, in the conversation, and let us know if you've noticed a difference in d w R over the years and the performance of it. I'd be interested to hear about that. Yeah, I'm gonna have to do this a little bit of of googling myself on this new one that you just told me about here that First Light's using, because I think that's awesome. Like if we can get great per formants and keep people dry outside without having to use these forever chemicals, I think that is just an enormous win. Um. So I'm stoked about that. And uh, basically a lot of UM. A lot of the challenge that people have been having with UH, with dwrs that do not use these forever chemicals is UM the oliophobicity of them. So the ability to repel oils aren't quite as up there with the the p f A S chemicals. That's why those are used for cookware and that sort of thing, a lot of food packaging. UM. So when it comes to finding alternatives, care is going to be more important than ever because keeping these items clean is really gonna ensure that you're gonna get that great water performance. I mean, as you know outdoors people, I feel like we just beat the heck out of these out of these pieces and UM A lot of times, I mean I'm super guilty of it. Like get to the end of a hunt or a hunting season, it just gets hung in the closet and unless it's really dirty, I just don't clean it. And you didn't even clean it once during the season. No, No, yes, pearls, I'd be clutching them right now. Listen. I've been I've been having to wash my I've been using my rain gear as sort of my main outerwear as I'm hunting lions and honey Lions required a lot of time spent with the snowmobile and the trailer and just the truck. And this time of year, you know, if you live in a in a snowy, cold place, you know, temperature are fluctuating, and there's just dirt and dust and dirty snow and oil and grease and stuff. And I'm constantly underneath, you know, when I rolled my snowmobile over, I'm underneath pushing on it, or I'm on the trailer tightening it down whatever, and my pants and everything. It's just constantly looking like I just changed the oil, you know, wearing my nice outer wear. Um, so I've been washing in a bunch. I'm interested to see if I've been doing it properly. Per hidees recommendations here, So I guess let's first, Heidi start with why is it important to keep your outerwear clean? Yeah, so a lot of people are actually intimidated to clean their outerwear, especially like the higher tech or the more expensive it is. There's this fear that washing it is going to ruin it, when it really couldn't be further from the truth. Even Gortex recommends that you're washing. They say you should want be washing your cortex jacket like every month, every thirty days, and that's coming straight from gortex. Um. So the thing is is if your gear gets dirty, all that dirt oils. Uh, all those things will actually attract water into the surface fabric of your jacket. They will cause that water appellent coating to not work effectively, which will then make your jacket get super wet. So the dirtier your gear is, the worst it's gonna work. So that's why cleaning is so important, is because you're removing all of those residues that are going to cause your jacket too wet out. Um. That's the term I like to use with the industry uses for if your jacket just soaks up water wedding out um. So regular cleaning super key. I always like to say clean whenever your jacket looks dirty. So I mean it kind of sounds like a super obvious thing, but if you look like even rolling around under a snowbile, maybe wash your jacket. Um. But also sometimes there are things that you can't really see on your jacket that can cause it to wet out. So body oils from like touching certain parts of your jacket, like especially around the zippers and pockets and cuffs. Um. Even camp fire smoke is crazy because that residue will get on your jacket and that can cause your jacket to wet out prematurely. Um. And I know everyone likes smelling neck camp fire like it's kind of like makes you feel all woodsy and happy, but it doesn't do great things for the performance. So you're telling me just by hanging out by a camp fire, I am killing the water repellency of my jacket. You are not doing it any favors. Also, I just in general don't recommend hang i camp fires in any sort of synthetic jacket. A little flying embers love to blast holes and puffy jackets and rain jackets and all those things. So what like what kind of impact do you see on I guess like the life of if you weren't around a camp fire one night and got your jacket full of smoke, Like, would you see better repellency for like an extra two weeks if that wouldn't have happened or I'm sure that's hard to quantify. Yeah, it could be hot, and it depends on how smoky was the campfire, etcetera, etcetera. Um, but you will see reduced performance. Um. And that in combination again with touching your jacket or leaning over your truck to clean off your windshield. I mean, all those things are going to contribute to your jackets starting to wet out and not work the way it should. Okay, And when it wets out, it's not the membrane, it's not the gortex or the thirty seven point five technology in there that's causing it to wet out. It's the fact that your dw R quit working right exactly. Yeah, your jack is not ruined. No need to freak out. Um. Really, we always say just clean it first. That's like the most important thing you can do with your gears. Just just just clean it. Please clean your jackets. Um. By keeping them clean, you're gonna have that dw are working the best that it can. I will say. Uh. Household detergents can also leave behind residues that are similar to all those things I just described, and that they will attract water into the surface fabrict of your jackets. So put away your rainforest bomb splash household detergent, use a technical cleaner. It's gonna be way better. And if they're meant to actually preserve that water uppellp coating on your jacket. So if I was at home and I don't have any technical cleaner yet, but my jackets looking dirty and I can't make it to the store to buy any for a few days, but I want to wash my jacket right now. Would it be better just to throw it in with a little bit of tide or should I just maybe wash it on with no soap at all and just let it run through a cycle. Uh, to do to let the water and the agitation just clean it as best it can. Great question. Um, if you have like a really gentle detergent at home, you could probably get away with that once or so to get the crud off, because oils and dirt are really going to pull a lot of water into your jacket. Um, but those detergent residues will build up. However, if you've got like one of those super crazy detergents, you know Billy May's selling it on infomercial style strength, I would say, don't use the detergent. It's going to leave all sorts of stuff on your jacket that it's going to harm the performance. So how would you recommend to wash these products? Yeah? So using a technical cleaner is really key. Nick Wax tech wash A little name drop there obviously, but it's a great one. Um. If you do have any kind of stubborn spots or like you know, stains on your jacket, you can pre treat by pouring a little bit of a technical detergent directly on them or a technical cleaner and giving a little scrub with a gentle brush. I find that helps lift out more stubborn stains that don't necessarily want to go in the first wash. Um, and then you can just clean in the washing machine. UM, it's pretty straightforward. Uh. A lot of these also are acceptable to be used as a hand wash, So if you're somewhere where you don't have access to a washing machine, if you're traveling internationally in a hotel, you can absolutely hand wash using a technical cleaner to get your jacket clean again. UM. I will say sometimes cleaning isn't enough. Over time that water up pollant coating I mentioned earlier, durable, not permanent. It will wear off. It will from jamming it up and stuffing it in your backpack, you know, backpack straps. Or you might notice really a braid your shoulders and that wears off first. So if cleaning no longer is enough, there are products also that help restore the water appellent coating on your jacket and other gear out there. So there's kind of it's a two step process for care for really extending the performance life of your of your gear. Okay, so step one would just be like wash it and then go use it, and then if you're seeing some continued issue, then you do like a d w R would be like a spray on. Yeah, so there's different types out there, of course. Um there's both wash in waterproofing and spray on waterproofing. Um. Obviously we always say go do it to brand recommends. So if a brand recommends using a spray on, use a spray on. I really like washings because you just do a second load in your washing machine. You get a really even coding, and you don't have to have your jacket like you know, dripping all over the floor of your house. UM. So I'm a big proponent of doing one cycle to clean and then a second cycle to rewaterproof. We make a product called t X Direct that's great for that. Um. But so again always go with your manufacturer's care instructions. First check what they say. But yeah, totally two step process. But always make sure you're cleaning before your rewaterproofing. There's always a a an inclination. People just want to like, grab a dirty jacket. It's not working. Just take an aerosol can of some stuff and close it down. It's not gonna work. Great. You really need to apply waterproofing to a clean item. Um. We like to say car analogies. You went just chuck wax all over a dirty car, right, you clean the car first, then you act the car. Same thing with waterproofing, clean first, then waterproof. You got it. So when you're when you're doing a product like the t X direct and rewaterproofing, UM, that's an air quotes for those of you that can't see me. Um, is that actually? Are you like? Actually? Is that like Nick Wax's own DWR coding that you're now putting on there? Is it revitalizing the existing DWR? What exactly is going on when you're you're using a rewaterproofing product. Yeah, any rewaterproofing product is going to be applying a new coding. UM and most will just fill in more or less fill in the gaps that aren't coded, so it's hard to waterproof something that's already waterproof. So we are products will be sally just rewaterproof any areas that aren't already waterproof, So it's re upping where it's been removed. So I mean, is it is that like a special sauce then? I mean, because obviously it's different than the than the stuff that's applied in the factory. But how different is it? I mean you can't just take a uh, I don't know. I'm trying to think of a piece of gear that doesn't have a dw R. But I mean cotton T shirt is a bad example because obviously that's never gonna be water repellent. But what's out there that could be kind of water repellent? And then could you make it have a d w R by just washing it in t X direct? Yeah? Actually, we um, we have a bunch of different waterproofing products. Um, we can make things water repellent that aren't. We actually have a product called cotton Proof that you can use on your cotton items. Um, it will make them water repellent. It won't turn your T shirt into a rain jacket. I mean, the weave is really pretty as much uh, looser like rain jackets. The weave of those are super tight. Um, a cotton T shirt. You know, water droplets can go through the weave of those. But we can make the fibers themselves water repellent. We can make polar fleece. You can waterproof your polar fleece um, and you can apply it to something that you know has a very light water pellancy, like a windbreaker. UM. A lot of people like to go to you know, thrift stores and buy those crazy old eight ski jackets that really don't have any water repellency on them anymore, and you can totally re up those as well. Mm hmm. And when you're at the point of re upping your d w R, are you expecting to get like a week of solid use out of out of out of a of a coding or could he go a month and be like a whole hunting season from one use. Well, my my favorite everyone else's least favorite answer is it depends on use. It depends how much you're using here. So um, basically I would I'd say you'd like to rewater proof at least once a season if you're looking to really maintain dependable performance. However, if you're getting out like both days a weekend, every weekend, sometimes on the weekdays throughout a season, you might need to do a little more often than that. Uh, if you're a power user, you're gonna need to use more product to stay dry out there because you're just you know, putting your gear through the ringer um. But generally a good kind of baseline, as we like to say, clean a couple of times a season, rewaterproof once a season. And if unless you're like a super hardcore individual, which maybe a lot of listeners here are that that'll probably do you just fine. Oh yeah, we got nothing but hardcores that listen to this show. Uh then weekly now just kidding, don't before we get to down one last question on drying, because I think that there's there's also some myths and wives tales surrounding drying of this outer Where can you talk about the dews and don'ts there? Yeah, so there's a lot of myths, as you say, around drying, and some of them are based in fact um basically, all of those factory applied dw rs, the C as the C six is um are our heat activated d w R. So sometimes just by cleaning your jacket and chucking it in the dryer, you can revitalize that dw R. It kind of respreads it around on the surface of the fabric. UM that said that will only do that only you know, last for so long until you actually need to apply more water palency to the jacket. UM. The other thing I will say, and I said it earlier, but always check the manufacturers instructions when it comes to drying. Certain types of jackets, like gortex jackets. Gortex is like yes throat in the dryer. Gortex loves being chucked in the dryer. There are other membranes on the market that don't like heat, so make sure that you're really paying attention to again those care instructions on the jacket when it comes to drying. Especially UM. A benefit of nick Wacks, we've never used any p f cs in any of any of those uh C eight or C six is um in our products, so ours don't need heat to activate. So if you don't have a dryer handy, you don't need to chuck a knick Wacks treated jacket in the dryer to make the water repellent coating work. That's interesting. It's usually I try to lean to like air dry, so that might not even like air drying might not be great for it, Like it just won't be depending what it is. If it's a cortex jacket, it's not going to be like heating that up and spreading it out. Yeah. But if you're using if you're using a nick Wacks waterproofer to rewaterproof, you don't need heat, so you can absolutely air dry and that's totally fine. Um. But yeah, I think the main the main point is to follow the care instructions it comes to drying. That's the that's the critical piece. And if you know, it's nice if you don't have a dryer to be able to air dry something and have it still work. Yeah. I believe first light says tumble dry low if I'm not mistaken. Um, all right, let's move on to down, uh, because down's got that Down can be tricky, right because a lot of down jackets have a little bit of a d w R on the outside. But yet you don't want to get you down all glommed up with stuff that makes it not fluff up. So what's what's proper care for down? Yeah? So it's actually a very similar story to your outerware. Clean it. Make sure you're cleaning it regularly. Dirt and body oils can get on the down feathers themselves over time, and that will cause your jacket to lose a loft. Um. Also, if the outer surface of your jacket starts wetting out and the water gets through to your down we all know down doesn't work when it gets wet, so that's going to cause your down jacket to not perform the way you want at all. So cleaning it regularly super important for maintaining the coating on the outside, but also to keeping the feathers nice and fluffy. Using a technical cleaner is key because household detergents are really harsh and can strip the down of some of their natural oils and things, causing them to get really brittle and break and kind of break down prematurely. So using a proper cleaning product back to that again is key. I will say you can you can add water palency to a down jacket. There are a lot of um hydrophobic waterproof down products on the market. Um. But if you have a down jacket at home that the outer fabric is starting to wet out, um, well, Nick Wax makes a product called down Proof that you can actually wash in an old rewaterproof the outer fabric of the packet as well as add water pealant seat to the individual down plumes, helping to make that jacket repel as much water as possible so you maintain loft and stay toasty. I'm getting a long list going here of nick Wacks products that I have to go buy. Hidi, hid what you just said on those down jackets. That also applies to like sleeping bags, right, absolutely, yes, sorry, it is jack generalized term, but yeah, totally on sleeping bags too. Yeah, especially if you're like sleeping in them without many clothes on, Like there's a lot of skin contact. Seems like that's where you get a lot of oils that yeah build up. Yeah, exactly. Um we definitely if you're able, using a sleeping bag liner is great to help prevent that. But I know a lot of people you know, going ultra light sleeping bag liners car are a little bit an opposite ethos to that. Um. It's also i'd say for sleeping bags, that's really nice to have a waterproof down sleeping bag because when you're sleeping, you are like your body is exuding a lot of moisture vapor, but if it's really cold outside, once that goes through the sleeping bag and hits the outer surface, it condenses. And so if you're sleeping bag out of fabric is no longer waterproof, it's going to soak in and then soak into the down and then it's you're gonna lose a bit aloft and you're gonna be chilly. So it's it's helpful for especially really cold conditions where you're going to get that kind of dew point difference between the sleeping bag in the air. But that happens all no matter if it's cold out there or not. You're constantly when you're sleeping in a bag, you're producing your body is producing some kind of a moisture vapor and it's moving into the down and like it's not. Your down bag is never as fluffy the seventh day of a trip as it is the first day, right, No, no, But by making sure that it is at least waterproof before or water repellent before the start of your trip, you can help prevent your down from absorbing as much as that water as it would normally. And so it's going to dry out a lot faster so that the next day it's not still damp and soggy and uncomfortable. I know you're just gonna say it's the same as the above, Hidi, But give us the why why are dirty boots bad? Yeah? A couple of reasons. The first actually with dirty boots is it can get into especially with leather, but even with fabric, dirt can kind of get into the fibers of the boot when you're walking because you get a lot of kind of friction um with the bending of the boot and can cause your boot to break down prematurely. Also if again really really with leathers especially, but if you leave dirt and mud to just dry out on your leather boots, it's going to cause that leather to dry out prematurely, and that's when you get cracking in your leather boots. So by keeping them clean, you're just making sure that they have the best chance to last as long as possible and not get dried out and cracked and busted up before they need to. And is that dried dirt or mud doing that? Is it like an osmosis kind of thing, because it's just like a dry cookie sitting on top of that nice oiled leather and it just slowly just sucks the oil out of the leather. Yeah, just kind of yeah, just dries on there. And what it's doing that is pulling some of them moisture out of the leather at the same time. As another another reason you wouldn't want to we don't recommend. I would say, uh, don't dry your footwear out in the blazing sun and or don't like stick them under your wood stove to dry them out, or right next to the heater, because that heat is going to dry out the leather prematurely. I mean obviously not under the woodstove. It will melt. But heat is not always your friend when it comes to keeping your boots clean and dry. Yeah. I can make him shrink too. Yeah, that's a good point. I lost. I'm not gonna mention the name because I think I think I warrantined them. I think they took care of me. But I had a brand new pair of high dollar boots and I dried them out next to a wood stove and basically the glue on the toe cap just totally melted and collapsed in the boots. I don't know where at least two sizes smaller than before I dried them out, and I literally couldn't even wear them. And luckily the company h took my mistake uh in their budget and they were cool and hooked me up. But anyways, yeah, don't do that. Um what else is it gonna say about? Oh yeah, I was gonna ask you, what about those like the inverted Pete's dryer type things that you plug in. They don't really have a fan in them, but they just sort of slowly circulate air, you know what I'm talking about for drying boots, I think. So. I think we have a pair here and my husband dirt bikes and we use it for drying out like his dirt biking boots. But it's it's on the inside as opposed to the outside. So that's I think that's a better solution really, because the inside can harbor a lot of moisture uh in where you don't want it to be. Um. So I think by drying from the inside, it's probably a better choice because you're not applying heat directly to the outer material, and those tend to be a kind of a gentler, more of a blowing sort of dryer and not like a again like a radiator or would stove, so it's going to be more uh more of a mellow heat that way, got it? Okay, So how do you clean dirty boots? Yeah? So I always make sure if they're like super muddy, you know, super self explant right, hope, you know, bang them off off outdoors, brush them off outdoors first. Um. Usually when you're cleaning boots, you're gonna be doing it in your sink. Um. If you can do it outside over a bin, that's great too, um, but try to get as much dirt off before you start cleaning, if possible. Get even you know, you can use like a a pick or a brush to get it out of the soles too, just so you're not muddying up your cleaning water or your sink. Um. With cleaning all types of footwear. Um, we talked about technical cleaners with rain jackets and down jackets and sleeping bags and all those things. If you want your footwear to have a functional water repellent coating, so again we're talking about waterproof, breathable footwear, you should be using a technical cleaner on your footwear. So there's a bunch available in the market. We make product called footwear cleaning gel. It has comes a little scrubber brush attached to it. You just basically get your boot wet. You scrub all over the boot, getting all of the dirt and stuff off of it, and then give it a rinse. I like to take the laces out of any boots first because sometimes a lot of dirt will collect in the tongue, especially if you have like a gustted tongue on your boot. So just making sure you get all the different spots your boots clean, to make sure to break down prematurely in a sneaky spot that you missed. Um. Yeah, and then let him air drying naturally. Um. And that's it's pretty straightforward. I like to stuff the insides with like some paper towel or you know, if you're feeling environmentally friendly, you could use a couple of rags just to help pull any moisture that may have gotten in there during the cleaning process out more quickly. Okay, So when I come home, I thought you would be impressed about my little boot cleaning kit, But I don't have actual soap. I just have a brush. I just brush in water. But you're saying I should add a some kind of a cleaning agent to probably get the dirt that I can't see off of my leather. Yeah, it's gonna be kind of like again like the Raine jackets. But if you're especially if you're noticing that your boots aren't repelling water effectively anymore, that's really when you're going to use the cleaner. I mean, sometimes we all just want our boots to you know, not be dirty from time to time. Sometimes it's a batch of honor and I get that too, but uh, look at how dirty my boots are. Um, it's sometimes I'll just do a little quick cleaning without the without the soap, just to make them look a little stiffy. But the soap is really key to maintain that water appellant finish on the outside. Okay, so the soap is not only cleaning, it's also adding uh water repellency. No, it's just removing any residues they're a little bit more stubborn that just water isn't gonna get off. So if there's any oils or stubborn dirts, it's going to remove those so that the water pellant coating can work the way it's intended to do. Got it. Okay, Well, now my boots have been wet and dried and wet and dried so much that they're they just they don't have that nice sheen of a nice oiled boot anymore. So how do you get them back in action? Yeah, you rewaterproof them. Um. And there for leather, there's a ton of products out there on the market, and everyone has their own preference about what products to use. UM. We make a product called waterproofing wax for leather that's great for all sorts of full grained leather boots and gloves, UM. And it maintains the tanning agents of the boot so that they don't dry out, but it doesn't oversoften. So some products on the market add great water paltsy, but they will soften the leather over time. UM. Other products the people really love, which again that's totally cool if that's what you're into, but do contain a lot of animal products, which there's nothing wrong with that, especially with this audience. But what it can do is it can lead to um mildew UM as well as well. And this is a kind of an extreme situation, but I've had this happen where I left an item out, you know, in the gear barn. And if you put products that contain animal products on items, occasionally small creator creatures creatures can get an and nibble on them because it tastes tasty. So really depends on what you want to use. Um, I don't. I'm not gonna preach too much more about one being better than the other. But the important thing is you're gonna use something that, like you said, really maintains the the suppleness of the leather so they don't prematurely dry and crack um we do. There are other waterproofing products for all types of footwear as well, So even if your boots aren't made out of leather, which less and less boots are, it's more of like a fabric and leather combination or in all fabric. There are products out there that will add water appillency back to those types of footwear as well, so that your boot can be nice and breathable. Got it. So a lot of these products are like what you see. You know, if you go to a certain boot manufacturer, they'll often try to sell you like just a little uh like like a little can of cream that's just like they call it, like trying to think. Usually it's not like a waterproof They don't sell it as a waterproofing deal. It's just a conditioner, and that's basically the same thing you're talking about right there is. Yeah. So conditioners are great for preventing your leather boots from drying out and cracking. The challenge of overusing conditioners is they can soften over soften the leather of your boot, which can compromise the support. So it's important to keep them waterproof because if a boot is wet all the time and then dries and wet and dries like we talked about, it will prematurely dry out. So by keeping it nice and waterproof, it will help protect the boot. So i'd always recommend a waterproofer, using a waterproofer more often. Conditioning is great for if you're breaking in a boot, or if you have a boot that's kind of a little bit old and tired and starting to get a little bit dry looking, then a conditioner is going to like revitalize it a bit more. But otherwise i'd stick to a straight waterproofer so you don't over soften the leather and make your boots all floppy. Got you? Okay, Um, what about some of these organic ingredients, like folks talking about just usually regular fat, which basically gets into talking about I mean the animal products that you just talked about and how they can be bad um. And then these wax as well. Yeah, different, there's different types of products on the market. Sometimes if it's something that's two wax based, it just it is more of a straight coding, which can compromise the breathability of an item. Um. And we talked about the challenge with fats and things again makes them attractive to be nibbled on, they can get rancid um. And then I'd always well, depends on how you treat your boots. Some people wear their boots out the where all the souls out long before they wear out the uppers, And if that's kind of more your style, I would always check with a cobbler about what products to use, because there are certain waterproofing products on the market that make it so you can't resol certain types of boots. So if you're the sort of person that's hard on the soles of your boots, but like really do a good job preserving the uppers, and you want to get your boots resold, which is a great thing to do because it makes them last a lot longer, and you know the tops are already broken in. I would check with a cobbler because they're going to have great um insight as to what products to use so that you don't make it so you can't resole your boots. Got you Okay? And uh, next up, like still keeping on the boots train, We've been talking about leather boots mostly, but what about synthetic boots. Yeah, so as long as it's something that's still designed to be UM breathable, you're gonna want to maintain the dw R coding on the outside the same way. UM. So there are products that exist on the market to do that. You still want to clean it first, um, and then you can use a spray on waterproofer. We make a product called Fabric and Leather Proof, which is great for all types of fabric, synthetic cotton, and then a fabric and leather combination UM, and that will just again add that water pellency back to the outside of the boot so it can breathe from the inside out perfect. Well. Uh, I think we went through that pretty good. We always like to to in the ending of our podcast give listeners like some really good, hard like hot tips that they can take away from this. Um, is there any like really hot tips for gearcare that you can give listeners as a takeaway? Yeah, I mean hot tips. I love it. UM, So a couple of ones. One maybe is really obvious, but always put your gear away clean. Like, never put your gear away dirty if you can avoid it. UM. A lot of times if you put especially jackets or anything that touches your skin where you've sweat into it, if you put it away dirty, all of your sweat and body oils will actually attract bacteria to your gear, and that bacteria can prematurely break down uh the interior the linings of your jacket, and that can cause delamination a lot faster, which is not what you want. So put your gear away clean, everybody super important. UM. The second my second hot tip which I try to tell everyone, and I try I tell myself even though sometimes I forget. Always check the pockets of your gear before you clean it, so you're not chucking your you know, gortex jacket in the washing machine with a two chapstick and a half eaten uh cliff bar, you causing mayhem and your washing machine. UM. Check the pockets. The same thing with putting away again backpacks and things. Check the pockets. I once, and I'm sorry I'm throwing cliff bar under the bus here, but I left one in the side pocket of my backpacking backpack and it absolutely gotten eaten, gut eaten, chewed up the whole egg because it tasted delicious, some little creature. So check the pockets. Number one tip perfect well. Thanks thanks again for hopping on. Really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, thank you, thanks for having me, thanks for listening to all my tips, and uh, if you all have any questions, of course I'm available and happy to chat more.

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