one more chopped staple fiberfill is now added to the dung pile.

WHY I RECOMMEND AN ADULTS SLEEPING BAG FOR YOUTH

Jerry, I recently purchased your 20 degree Marpat mummy bag for my seven year old son's first real camp out with the Cub Scouts. We were at Camp Daniel Boone, at the base of the aptly named Cold Mountain in North Carolina. The temps were in the low 30s, winds were at a steady 30 MPH and gusting to 50 MPH. I was expecting him to wake up and complain about the conditions. He did wake me up, around 1:00AM and said, "Papa, I am WAY too hot." After a short lesson about venting heat from his bag with the zipper, he was back fast asleep and did not budge until morning. I have full confidence in your products and I just completed an order for bags for the rest of the family. Thank you for your commitment to high quality products.

-Matthew

Matthew’s son is too large for the youth bag so a regular length regular width bag is proper for him and it will last him many years. The fact that the bag may appear to be too large some would say it is a lot to heat up. Well the drape of the bag is such that he is only heating where his body is touching the bag. The end result is what Matthew wrote about his son’s experience. It was not new for me to hear this, as Wiggy’s bags have been purchase by Boy Scouts for years.

Matthew thank you for the report,

NOW FOR THE NEWEST AND GREATEST OF INSULATIONS (?) TO BE PUT ON THE MARKET

There is a Chinese company Smawarm offering the newest and greatest development in synthetic insulation that will replace down. Unfortunately for them they will have wasted their money trying to put this product on the market because it is not any different than ALL of the other chopped staple fiberfill products available today.

MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY

Smawarm's raw materials are derived from extracted calcium minerals and recycled PET bottles, fusing them with the lastest nano technology to create fibers containing permanent functions surpassing down in all aspects.

They are using the calcium from marine animals such as clams and oysters but they do not know how damaging that is to marine life. When I was sailing I sailed into Chrisfield, MD. Known as the crab capital of the country because the catch millions of blue claw hard shell and soft shell crabs. They also harvest oysters and they were prolific 100 or more years ago. When they shucked the oysters the shells became used as landfill. However, the oyster popular started to decline dramatically and the reason was because the shells were not dumped back into the Chesapeake Bay. The shells are calcium and it was necessary for the continued growth of the species. So by using the calcium from sea creatures they are hurting the environment. In addition the end product being made is a waste of time and money because it is not a good product nor will it ever be.

But as you will read it is supposed to do things no other insulation does.

Hygienic Sleeping Bags

Insulation with anti-microbial and anti-odor are must-have functions for sleeping bags, especially multiple overnights with all that sweating and lacking the change of clothe. Wake up and pack up without germs duplicating in your bag to trouble you the upcoming night, wash less but stay fresh.

What they do not know is that all sleeping bags made with chopped staple fiber do not insulate very well so sweating is not a problem when you are cold, you do not sweat. In addition the microbial creatures freeze to death. They also do not know that the sleeping bags made with chopped staple fiberfills cannot be washed because they will deteriorate as a result of laundering or maybe know the stuff will not launder so they recommend washing less.

Climate Adaptation

Softness and warmth aren't the only influences on comfort, a stench of odor could disrupt the peace. The word "comfort" could also be meaningless when one falls ill from bacterial invasions.

This product has only one meaning so it is not meaningless, its meaning is that it will not, does not or will ever work.

Unrelenting warmth

Unlike ordinary down insulations which loses the ability to keep warm in wet conditions, smawarm retains its performance in such situation and preserves warmth.

They are correct about down losing its ability to retain warmth when wet; actually the wet down does its best to drain by absorption the heat of the person wearing the down garment or laying in a down sleeping bag. However, smawarm has almost no ability to retain heat from a human source. What is unrelenting is how quickly you lose your body produced warmth!

This product could give primaloft, thinsulate , lite loft or polar tech a solid run for being the worst material ever offered as an insulating medium yet. But like these other products if the smawarm company GIVES enough money to some company that company will more than likely use it.

I refer back to Einstein’s comment of “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a sure sign of insanity” here. Chopped staple polyester fiberfill has been made basically the same way since 1960 and it has proven beyond doubt that it is not a particularly good product for use in sleeping bags or cold weather garments other than what would be sold at a Walmart type of store. All that are sold in the higher priced outdoor stores are much more expensive products that perform equally as badly when they are made with chopped staple fiberfill as they all are that come from Asia.

These high priced product sellers in the outdoor industry are equally adamant about change to the continuous filament fiberfill as the boot industry is about not using goretex products or the like. The primary reason for not using it is because it is not made in Asia, only the USA and they would have to ship it to their Asian contractors. That is in my opinion not a thought on their part. They would just as well make trash none functioning sleeping bags and so called cold weather parkas because the profit margins are significantly higher using only Asian components.

I now do believe that almost all of the textile products offered for sale in the outdoor industry are of poor quality and the companies that market them either do not know what good quality is or they do not care, I think the latter.

This smawarm product will join ALL of the former chopped staple fiberfill products on the dung heap where they all belong.