A couple of years ago I saw that Mizuno in Japan were selling a range of windshirts that they said had an extremely efficient "lotus leaf" DWR. As you may know, the leaves of the lotus plant are extremely water-proof, and dirt-proof, because they are covered in tiny bumps which have the effect of not allowing water drops to spread out – so water rolls around like drops of mercury instead. Attaining the same thing in man-made products has become something of a holy grail – there is for example a glass for skyscrapers which is claimed to be permanently self-cleaning because it has a lotus leaf structure.
When I was back in Japan in April I bought one of these windshirts on sale. I gave it to my wife who put it in her wardrobe. Fast forward to July – which is mid-winter here – and I'm riding to work daily but having to carry both waterproofs and windproofs because the winter weather has been all over the place: scattered showers followed by sun followed by cold winds. Too wet for my Montane Lite-speed or Patagonia Houdini or Pneumatic but then too warm for my eVent and way too warm for my Paramo. I looked at all sorts of soft-shells but the best options weren't in Australia. I thought of getting a Gore Windstopper cycling jacket from the UK but then remembered the Mizuno. So I dug out the Mizuno and stuck it under a tap. The water simply ran off. The next day was supposed to be wet so I took a chance and wore it. The next night I left the office in the dark with the rain coming side-ways. But the rain simply beaded up on the jacket. The Mizuno is slightly stretchy so when I got to the first traffic lights I stretched the arms and when I let go the little balls of water blew off. To my utter astonishment, when I got home after about 45 minutes in solid rain my base layers were dry, as was the inside of the jacket. So I started wearing it daily: it breathed like my Litespeed but I didn't get wet if there was shower. I wore it home in a storm last week, with stronger winds and had the same result, with just one patch above my elbow where water appeared to have soaked into the fabric. At one point I watched in surprise as the wind simply blew the water drops off the jacket: it looked like what used to happen with the fluorocarbon coating on my car's windows.
I haven't been able to establish what technology it is that they used in the jacket. They no longer make the jacket and don't refer to the Lotus Leaf technology on their website. I did have a Mizuno catalogue which had the jacket in it, but threw it out a couple of months ago. That said, as Mizuno use the Ion-Mask nano-coating in their shoes I suspect that is what it is. Strictly speaking that's not "lotus leaf" technology but if it's this effective then it really would change the game. And it begs the question: why isn't it used more widely?
