more b/s

The following article is as disgusting, erroneous and as grandiose a lie as is goretex. In other words, it is unmitigated BULLL SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am appalled that a company as large and successful as ortholite would steep to such a low level to sell a product!!!

OrthoLite® Creates World’s First and Only Aerogel-Infused Open Cell PU-Foam

Aerogel is a non- product in the field of insulation. The people who sell aerogel are delusional just like the primaloft people are. Primaloft has gone into a partnership to sell an aerogel product mixed with the primaloft product that they, both parties claim makes an excellent product which is no less bogus than all of the previous products that primaloft has offered in the marketplace.

I believe without reservation these two companies like gore are/have bought their way into companies using their bogus products which shows that the people who own the companies that use gortex, primaloft and now aerogel have no knowledge of these products nor do they care because they are receiving monies from these companies through advertising or maybe some other methods; think about it!!!

Now to the article:

OrthoLite unveils O-Therm™ as the ultimate cold-weather footwear solution

An incredible opening statement for the article. Right-a-way you know that someone to be named soon is in my opinion an ULTIMATE IDIOT. He has no earthly idea as to what it takes to keep feet warm in cold weather.

AMHERST, Mass. (February 25, 2021) – OrthoLite®, the industry leader of branded, high performance and comfort footwear solutions, unveils OrthoLite O-Therm™, an innovative new thermal insole technology that sets a new standard in cold-weather footwear protection.

I did not know there was an old standard for cold weather footwear protection. Now we find out what o-therm is.

O-Therm offers all of the known benefits of open-cell PU-foam, while combining the world’s lightest and most insulative cold barrier protection. This technology is only possible with O-Therm’s proprietary aerogel’s unmatched thermal properties and is unrivaled in any other footwear offering. For the consumer, this means your feet will stay warmer, you can stay outdoors longer, feel more comfortable, perform better and go farther in cold weather conditions.

o-therm starts out with open cell pu-foam. Pu means polyurethane foam which has no resilience, and they use it because it is as cheap a foam product as you can buy. Those of you who have baseball hats with a layer of foam in the crown are looking at and feeling open cell polyurethane foam. Why is it laminated to the hat fabric because it is cheap? At one time I owned a flame laminating machine and served the hat companies still in the country. The aerogel when last seen by me is very fine fiber, finer than the fiber I use because if they make it too thick it becomes brittle. How they are applying it to the foam could be when the foam formula is mixed, they add the aerogel or maybe they are somehow spraying it on the foam when it is warm. Those are my thoughts and may not be correct at all. But it matters not because the end result is not, and I quote;” unmatched thermal properties and is unrivaled in ANY other footwear offering”. Using these insoles with my footwear offering would not be any different than any other insoles one wears. The last sentence of this paragraph is the epitome of b/s.

O-Therm is the first and only aerogel-infused, open-cell PU foam. This new technology creates a thermal barrier that blocks the cold and maintains footwear temperature regulation. Using an advanced aerogel, the world’s most insulating material, the proprietary combination of materials in O-Therm delivers unmatched thermal insulation and all-day comfort underfoot for cold-weather protection.

Ortholite may have been the first company that aerogel solicited to use their product and did not tell them how good [not] their product is but how much advertising they were going to give them if they agreed to using the aerogel product. You see they have had to repeat them selves only using different wording. Aerogel is NOT the worlds most insulating material. If it were, I would be using it. There they go again as Ronald Reagan would say and I quote; “about unmatched thermal insulation and all-day comfort under foot for cold weather protection”. BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLL SHIT!

“OrthoLite’s proprietary aerogel is O-Therm’s secret sauce,” explains Rob Falken, Vice President of Innovation at OrthoLite. “Our advanced aerogel traps micro-pockets of air without the need for loft, and it won’t lose its effectiveness when compressed under foot. OrthoLite’s aerogel is unlike any other aerogel solution in that it is nano-porous inside of a multi-porous structure, and that creates a supreme thermal barrier which blocks both cold and heat. In addition, O-Therm’s advanced silica aerogel powder is the lightest man-made material, weighing in at only three times the weight of air,” Falken notes.

Rob Falken should never open his mouth when the subject is insulation!! Imagine that loft is not needed for insulation and when the open cell foam is compressed under foot and it will be as he obviously knows it will lose, its effectiveness, but he has to ignore what happens when a 200-pound man wears open cell foam. The soles of my SUNWALKERS, OVER BOOTS AND MUKLUKS have close cell foam for a reason, they don’t get crushed as open cell foam does. The aerogel is in a “nano-porous inside of a multi-porous structure [open cell polyurethane foam] and that creates a supreme thermal barrier which [does the impossible] blocks both cold and heat”. We now know that the aerogel which is a silica powder is maybe sprinkled on the foam when they are gluing the layers of material that make up the insole. Big deal it weights three times the weight of air, it still doesn’t work, hear that rob.

O-Therm advanced aerogel is also exceptionally hydrophobic, which means it repels water and moves moisture away from the foot to provide a drier, more comfortable shoe environment. Exclusive to OrthoLite, this proprietary advanced aerogel requires no special handling or encapsulation – a world’s first.

It does not repel water; it just doesn’t absorb it. It does not move moisture either. If you are wearing LAMILITE socks the moisture will move away from your feet. Of course, it requires no special handling as it is retained between the fabrics that make up the insoles.

OrthoLite worked with third-party thermal test laboratory, New York City-based Vartest Laboratories, to quantify the thermal performance of O-Therm aerogel insoles under extreme cold conditions -78°C (-108°F). The third-party test results validate that O-Therm is a breathable thermal barrier that is 54% more effective on average in comparative testing to other thermal insoles when tested at -78°C (-108°F).

I do not know of vartest labs, but I do know they also know nothing about testing for thermal performance. How did they come up with -108 F cold conditions; certainly not on earth since it almost never happens in Antarctica, a cold chamber and did they have some one in the chamber. This paragraph is as much BULL SHIT as what we have already read.

O-Therm retains all of the comfort and performance benefits of OrthoLite open cell PU foam. O-Therm is a 2mm base-layer thermal foam that can be combined with a wide range of OrthoLite top-layer foams to create a custom insole solution tailored to a broad range of footwear categories, including: outdoor, casual, work, ski and snowboard, fashion, and other cold weather footwear categories. The innate thinness and moldability of O-Therm also makes it an ideal thermal barrier solution for footwear linings and strobel layers—bringing unsurpassed cold block technology without adding bulk or weight.

“We are proud to introduce this new thermal innovation to the footwear industry,” says John Barrett, President of OrthoLite. “We see tremendous potential in the market—in cold weather footwear applications and beyond.”

With respect to the last two paragraphs’, it says to me they are trying to convince themselves they have a product of value, they haven’t. john barrett is the epitome of a charlatan.

Every other insole they sell is not going to perform any different than these with aerogel. The aerogel is probably going to be more expensive so any person who buys these insoles is wasting their money.

This ploy to sell a non-functioning product is rampant in the out do industry since goretex was put in the marketplace so any company thinks they can repeat what gore did. These guys at ortho are just copying a marketing ploy.

They do not understand that if you want warm feet you need to be dressed in the proper clothing to include footwear and an insole is immaterial.

I find it sickening to read about what companies today will do to fool the buying public with garbage.

BUT I END WITH S URPRISE TESTIMONIAL

1. Tried And Tested

   I have come to respect the functionality of this liner, so much so that I have it with me at all times to just throw on as a liner under my ACU, or coveralls when caught out in the open... I have owned this for upwards of 5-6 years, and although it will not win any fashion shows it does keep me protected from the cold and wind... I will eventually buy another as a back up that is how much I think of it. Try it, you will be surprised that it works well.

   – Grinny