So you left your old rain jacket balled up in a stuff sack all winter and now it’s time for it to shine. Well, you might want to give your jacket a little attention before shipping off to the British Isles.
Luckily for you, most rain jackets and pants—whether they have a GORE-TEX® membrane, a waterproof laminate, or simply a water-repellent coating—are easy to clean and rejuvenate.
The first thing is to simply wash your gear. Step one in the process is to LOOK AT THE LABEL. Follow those instructions. They’re there for a reason. If your label is gonzo or worn to illegibility, the following steps should take care of you.
Use a warm wash and warm rinse in your machine at home. Specially formulated tech-washes are available from companies like Nikwax. We recommend you use one of those. But if you’re trapped in the twilight zone with nothing but a mild powder detergent like Dreft, you’ll make it. Again, follow those instructions. Liquid detergents or detergents that contain fabric softener or color brightener can clog the pores of GORE-TEX® membranes and ruin DWR coatings, which means you may as well go back to wearing a garbage bag. Never use bleach, for obvious reasons.
After you’ve washed your jacket and pants, LOOK AT THE LABEL (sorry, but we want you to be careful). Most rainwear can handle a tumble dryer on low heat, but some advise hang-drying. The dryer is actually great, because the heat tends to open pores and reactivate DWR coatings. If you do use the dryer, make sure you grab your gear as soon as it’s done because sitting on hot metal could damage the fabric.
Can you get my back?
The next step is rejuvenating the fabric. GORE-TEX® material and all waterproof-breathable fabrics are great, but they don’t work when the face fabric of your jacket absorbs water (that’s called “wet-out” and it prevents sweat vapor from escaping). You want water to bead up on the surface, like when you put a new coat of wax on your Trans Am. This lets sweat vapor escape in between all the droplets, and as a result you stay dry on the inside. GORE-TEX® cautions against using wash-in treatments to treat GORE-TEX® fabrics, and recommends the spray-on variety. Follow the instructions on the bottle of whatever treatment you buy, but most recommend coating the jacket and pants and then a brief stint in the dryer to “fix” the treatment. In either case, your gear’s should be ready for another year of rainy trips. Go test it with the garden hose.
If you’re just trying to breathe life into an old DWR jacket, try going to your local Sprawl Mart (we know … we’re going to hell for this), and grab the spray-on waterproofing that’s in the orange can. It’s in the camping section. $5 well spent.
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Tags: fabric tech, GORE-TEX®, rain jackets
damn, why didn’t you guys post this before I used the wash in nikwax stuff. bummer
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[...] Rejuvenating Rain Jackets [...]
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Great!
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