Those of you who suffer the fate of winter weather might be interested in this:
"We wanted to establish whether it ...t a fire."

-Blast

Awesome!

That's a great reason to wear my merino long underwear even when I don't think it's cold enough to warrant it.

Good wool is hard to beat. I like fleece, but wool can't be beat for how warm it makes you feel. I actually stopped wearing it when snowmobiling because it made me too warm under the snow suit. My good wool socks though I always wear. I would have to be dead to give them up.

It's unfortunate that it's so tough to find good wool wear in stores around here. Seems like most stores are into the latest and greatest miracle fabric or ski-based fashion. Dull grey wools are just too boring and "old school."

i found 'icebreaker' merino wool products to be warm, soft and comfortable for those chilly / cold (for us) mornings. a bit pricey - no more than the synthetics - but recently found some on sale at sierra trading post.

http://www.icebreaker.com/site/index.html

http://www.sierratradingpost.com/

thanks for the link, blast.

This would be for -30 Celsius?

Even if it's -30F that's -34C.

Not too bad of a link and an interesting experiment.

But when I ran into this statement:
"After absorbing moisture, chemical reactions take place in its fibres releasing heat and as result making the fibre feel warm against the skin."

The assertion that the fibers release heat is a very questionable. Feeling warm does not mean the wool is generating actual heat any more than drinking alcohol 'makes you warmer'. more likely the ability of wool to irritate skin just feels like warmth.

Wool has some slight advantages in some situations over most polypropylene fleece because the fiber density, and weight, on the wool is higher and it is water repellent because of the lanolin in the fibers. Not so much because of some magical "pores". Wool is not Gortex. But a lot of it is how the clothing system is driven.

But poly cannot absorb anywhere near the water that wool can so it simply falls out of the weave even if it soaks through. Less density and less wind stopping ability is not necessarily a bad thing. Separating the wind stopping into a separate layer gives you faster control over heat and moisture buildup and release. This ability to dump moisture and heat faster than most wool layers has advantages when the weather is fluctuating quickly or you need to go inside and out frequently. To get a similar responsive effect with wool you need to more dramatically ventilate it. Sometimes only total removal will work. With wool you can spend a lot more time and effort ventilating it to suit highly variable conditions.

There are brands of poly fleece that are more densely packed, more windproof, and treated with a water repellent and these may function better for those who like the dynamics of wool.

For my money even the regular, now quite inexpensive, poly is what I buy. The reasons being that cost is always an issue, I can get similar results by appropriate use of mixed layering, and wool down here is very subject to insect attack even after being 'moth-proofed' or specially packed for storage.

I also wonder about the test. They made a big deal out of removing the cotton outer layers. Why? Why would anyone wear cotton outer layers?

Given a more sensible clothing scheme for the same temperature of a thin liner under layer. Fleece insulation mid-layer/s and windproof and water repellent shell and the issues of how to recover from a dunking pretty much disappears.

The shell doesn't hold water any more than a tarp does. The mid-layer/s only need to be removed and shaken to remove the bulk of the water. The liner layer can stay on but it, even if it is soaked, dries immediately in the air mainly because the water simply falls out so there is no need to roll in any snow.

So the response with a proper synthetic layering system is much less drama. Take off outer layer and shake off the water. Take off insulation layer/s and shake out the water. Put the fleece back on. Put the outer layer back on but keep it loose and open for ventilation. Do a few jumping jacks or run in place to regenerate warmth and to drive off the last bit of remaining moisture.

That ability to quickly and easily recover when soaked is why the army gave up on wool and went for poly fleece. Wool will always have a following. Particularly where the weather is cold and dry. But polypropylene isn't going anywhere and more people are learning how to use it to good advantage when things are cold and wet. A lot depends on how you drive the system.

These are actually well documented properties of wool and some of the many amazing properties of the stuff.

Wool is naturally water repellent because of it's microscopic structure and because of the wax within the fibers. In the right situation, water will bead off. This structure also allows vapour to freely pass through the fibers...so in this way it is sort of like Goretex.

Wool will also absorb moisture. Because under normal circumstances it will try to repel the water and absorb the vapour, it generates heat because water vapor being forced back into a liquid form is an exothermic chemical reaction which generates heat. Wool can also absorb up to 1/3 it's weight in liquid.

This is also what keeps us cool in the heat when the opposite happens. We sweat and the wool absorbs that moisture and wicks it away from the skin naturally, then it evaporates...an endothermic reaction which absorbs heat effectively cooling us. These are the chemical reactions he's referring to.

Now that being said, in this case they've soaked the wool forcibly by dunking it in water so they've bypassed this effect (wool is water repellent, not water proof). I think the warmth they are feeling is what was left of their own body heat. Wool will wick the moisture away very quickly and as it does, the insulating properties of the wool will be restored somewhat.

Also, I'm with you on the synthetics. For the most part I like poly and similar materials better because of their durability. But as a base layer wool is amazing. I wear the same Merino tops and bottoms in the cold (silk weight) under insulated clothing as I do in the summer when it's +35C...I can't do that with Poly...I'd roast. I wear poly layers over top of that base layer for added effect and it seems to work really well.

My guess on why they wore Cotton was a worse case scenario test.

I like mixing materials. My polyester next to skin layers consist of CoolMax or Nomex. Over that will be either a wool or poly fleece material and over that the opposite. For flight ops I have a nomex fleece jacket and I'm considering a nomex mid-layer. Nomex has some nice properties in the right weave. CoolMax, poly fleece and wool (inner to outer) works well. If it's raining add non-insulated raingear over the top.

Cotton is okay as long as it stays dry. At very cold temps when there is little humidity it can serve well as a tough abrasion resistant material that takes a spark from a campfire much better than nylon or polyester. However, once wet (falling into a river) it needs to come off immediately. Let it freeze and then knock out the ice. I remember many cold winters wearing jeans in the snow and I never got wet because the cold kept the water in a frozen state. Knock off the snow before you go inside.

Cotton is often preferred by those in very cold temps if using a
fire for warmth as Russ noted.