the great con job, scam

One of my readers sent to me the link for the following report done by the mtntactical.com located in Jackson, Wy. It is proof that Gore-Tex and all other materials do not function as advertised in the field but only in laboratories.

Is Gore-Tex Worth the Extra Cost? The answer to this question which is the title of the study is NO based on function!!!

March 11, 2016KnowledgeSSD

You don't want to be drenched in sweat at the top of this hike....

You don’t want to be drenched in sweat at the top of this hike ….

By: Rob Shaul; Mike Harostock; Andy Rampp and Adam Scott

RATIONALE: The use of the term word rationale hereis a contradiction; you cannot rationalize the irrational!

Consider this scenario: You being on a brisk uphill hike, in 45 degree weather and steady rain wearing your Gore-Tex or similar jacket and carrying 45# ruck or pack. You begin to heat up, but must continue to wear the jacket or risk getting soaked through by the rain. Of course you are getting soaked anyway from your sweat, so what is the difference where the water is coming from?

The temperature drops dramatically, wind kicks up, and rain turns to snow. Sixty minutes later, you’ve climbed 1,500-2,000 feet, its 20 degrees and blizzardy, and you have to stop and stay still for a tactical or some other reason. Probably because you are starting to experience getting cold!

If your jacket is not breathable, your base layers are soaked by sweat, and soon you begin to shiver, and hopefully can shiver yourself dry before becoming hypothermic. The reality is your jacket is not breathing and if you are not wearing fishnets your base layers are soaked and all the shivering in the world will not help and you from becoming hypothermic. - There is no mention of the fact that you probably would be wearing at this point an insulated layer of clothing that is part of your jacket or a separate layer. Do these people believe just the Gore-Tex is otherwise a form of insulation?

If your jacket was 100% breathable, your base layers are dry, or nearly so, and you stay warm. This is the value of a “breathable” jacket. According to the eVent website: "Waterproof means nothing is your sweat has nowhere to go.” The first two sentences are absolutely false, except if you happen to be wearing fishnet underwear under whatever else you happen to be wearing. That is a statement by me that I can readily support having used fishnets for all the years I have been making them starting in about 1990. I also add the fact that if it had not been for the fishnets I would never have survived my experience getting lost. If the base layers are close knit the layer will trap the moisture and you will not dry regardless if the garments worn over the base layers are completely uncoated. The eVent statement from their web site is true your sweat has no place to go, again if you are wearing a close knit base layer.

Many fabrics advertise themselves as waterproof and breathable. Gore-Tex is the most well known, but others on the high end include eVent and Polartech’s Neoshell. There are several on the low end – usually coating based like Marmot PreCip and Patagonia H2No. Every last product noted in this paragraph as well as any un-named in the article have blatantly lied to the general public about the ability of their addition to vaper permeable fabrics to have each of the noted characteristics; being both waterproof and breathable!!!

The price differences between fabrics can be significant. On the Marmot.com website, the MSRP for the Marmot Alpinist Pro jacket, made from Gore-Tex Pro, is $600. It’s PreCip jacket, build from “Nanopro” also claims to be both waterproof and breathable, but has an MSRP of just $100. Is the cost for these garments worth it at all if one wants a garment that is supposed to do as is advertised; NO! Whenever you take good money out of your pocket and give it to a retailer you are being ripped off because you will not receive a garment that is capable of doing what you have been told by the advertising and or the sales person. You will not have received the value you thought you were getting.

To this point, testing to establish breathability has been laboratory focused. We could not find a practical, mission-direct test of fabric breathability. This is an accurate statement as far as a test done in the field that has been published. There is no need to do the test any longer since the number of people who purchased these garments has found out that these garments do not do as they have been advertised to do. One of the more vocal is Andrew Skurka who has written about and done videos exposing the faults and dangers of Gore-Tex. Go to andrewskurka.com and you can get a very good education from him. The difference between Andrew and my self is simple I only bought one pair of shoes with the Gore-Tex film in them and ultimately through them away and have never bought another product from any company that uses any of these false materials.

We could assume, based on the cost difference and know, because of laboratory tests, that the Gore-Tex Pro fabric is more “breathable” than the jacket made of NanoPro. To assume means the following “you make an ass of you and me”! Either of these materials is the same!!!

Most breathable fabrics do come with technical rating of breathability, and there are a couple of different forms, like the “Ret”, “A1”, “B1” or “B2”, but how do these laboratory measures equate to outside performance? These designations are like “clo value”, they too have no value.

In practical, real-world application, does the Gore-Tex jacket “breath” better enough to justify is 600% price premium? Is Gore-Tex worth it? The answer to both questions is an unequivocal NO! This brand and every other brand of material designated for the same purpose is not worth buying if it is for the use that the purpose advertises. To buy any of them is like throwing money into the ocean.

Over the next two weeks we are planning to take a few commonly used waterproof, breathable fabrics and put them through our mission-direct tests to determine their “real-world breathability.” As I read through the report I read that they had people in a large building wearing jackets made from these materials and they had the doors open. And that my friends are their way of experiencing “real-world breathability” testing!

I though; you can put lipstick on a pig but you still have a pig; and then I realized I was insulting the pig with this comparison.

We have a consumer protection agency that is supposed to make sure that consumers are not ripped off by snake oil salesman. Well there is no longer snake oil salesman as far as I know but there are companies that in my opinion are no different. I have years ago called them to find out how to bring a bogus product to their attention; a joke so I never did anything.

All of the employees of companies that market these bogus materials must pay large wages to their representatives many of who I am quite sure know that what they represent does not work. Then there are manufacturers who probably are receiving large advertising budgets to make garments with one or more of these materials. I read the other day about a British company that has been in business since about 1980 and just this year of 2018 will be offering a line of Gore-Tex lined products. If the Gore-Tex product was so good, why didn’t they start using it years ago? You can ponder an answer.

Call any mail order company that sells these products and ask about the performance and ALL will tell you how well the garments work. Go into a retail store and ask about the garments ability to work and you get the same answer. We have two generations of people who are very gullible since they have supported companies who feed then erroneous information about the products they sell.

From my perspective we live in a free country and we are all free to make mistakes and while I know buying any garment from foot wear to head wear and everything in between that is made with these materials is a complete waste of money and further I believe those who do spend the money are being ripped off but no problem; we are living in a free country so you can support the con job or scam!!!

SCAM: Earning ownership had come to feel like a scam --- even when it came to things that we felt made life worth living. source is the online dictionary.. You earned ownership of that w/b jacket when you paid for it with the money you earned. Its purpose was to make life more comfortable while active in the outdoors and it failed to do what it was cracked up to do. Therefore, it fits the category of being referred too as a scam to my way of thinking!

If these materials are so good why is it not one manufacturer that I know of using these types of materials have never published positive testimonials about the garments they make using these materials? I however have published many comments that have been sent to me stating unequivocally that they have garments made with these materials that do not function as advertised.