Synthetic insulation has finally caught up 🔬
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Heatwave Puffer Jacket v1.5 - Major Brown
Item weight: 308 grams
$839.00 NZD
US Men's Plasma 1000 Alpine Down Parka - Light Gray
Item weight: 237 grams
$650.00 NZD
Ringer Tee - Blue Heart
Item weight: 160 grams
$180.00 NZD
When we had dinner with Nur Abbas, the founder of Gnuhr, in Japan last year, he told us about an insulation he'd just come across. A synthetic sheet that could stand toe to toe with down insulation on warmth and beat it at all the things down is bad at - staying warm when it's wet, bouncing back after it’s been stuffed into a pack and surviving a wash without needing a tennis ball to be resurrected. He'd be one of the first to make a jacket from it, but he didn’t think it would happen because it sounded too good to be true. A synthetic fill that rivals down is a claim the outdoors industry has been making and under delivering on for decades.
Earlier this year we caught up with Nur (and Taylor ❤️) again over a video call. He was sending the Heatwave Puffer off to IDFL, the independent lab the industry uses to settle exactly these arguments and he wondered aloud how it would stack up against a proper 1000 fill down parka. So we offered to send one of ours.
Stan the mannequin wore both and then the numbers came back and they were exciting!!!
The jacket came out rated to 2.01 clo of warmth, which is the lab's way of saying it's good down to 5.6°c while you're moving gently. For a jacket you can stuff down into an Allmansright medium sized Krafs Stuff Sack, that's a lot! 97.9% loft recovery, which means you can crush it flat, let go and it puffs back up light nothing happened. That's the bit you really feel on day three of a trip, when tired down comes out of the pack flat and this comes out fresh. A straight 5 out of 5 for wash durability, IDFL's top mark, with no defects after repeated washing. Down hates being washed and requires a bit of care, this just doesn't give a shit. Measured side by side, the Heatwave lofted 70% higher than the down parka we sent in with it.
The numbers are why we trust it but the reason every team member of Coffee Outdoors actually owns one is simpler, it's just a very good jacket to have on in a silhouette we want to wear.
It's very simple and that's on purpose! There are no baffles which means no seams stitched through the fill, resulting in no cold spots and fewer things to fail. Elastic cuffs with thumb loops keep the draughts out and a removable hem adjuster lets you cinch it in to trap your warmth in or pull it off and shave the grams down when you're counting them. It packs into its own MASSIVE hood, which when worn up feels like a big puffy balaclava and means you can leave your hat at home.
Its outer is a 15 denier ripstop woven by Toray in Japan, from a 60% bio-nylon blend which means most of the yarn comes from plant based sources rather than petrochemicals. It’s the same fabric used in Gnuhr’s Breaker Wind Shirt to stop the wind getting past and it’s effective.
Of course we still love down and we still sell plenty of it. Bone dry and well cared for, nothing beats it for warmth per gram. But the moment things get wet (which is most of the time around here) down loses its loft and synthetic keeps on working to keep you warm. That's what makes the Heatwave Puffer the one we reach for on a grey Wellington morning and the one we'd want on us if a day out ever went sideways.
Like most of what Nur makes, it comes in small runs, so if one of the new colours has your name on it, don't think about it for too long!
