Nylon in my clothing – help!

Hey Cyndy:

You posting was a bit confusing to me. You talked about:

1) A base layer – silk
2) A wicking layer – your nylon blend sports shirt
3) A merino wool shirt

Base and wicking are two names for the same thing. Conventional wisdom would be you wear just one of these shirts any any given time, and then you layer on top of it something for warmth, and/or something to protected against wind and/or wet.

Ideal base/wicking layer moves water away from your skin and spreads it out without actually absorbing it. IMHO the best materials for a wicking/base layer are technical polyster (coolmax, powerdry, etc) and to a lesser extent merino wool (I know most people here prefer merino wool). Silk is decent.

Nylon is sort of a mixed bag. The down side is that it tends to absorb water which you don’t want. The upside is that it tends to dry pretty quickly. In warm conditions nylon works pretty well because a bit of water absorption is easily offset by the durability and versatility.

If you are having trouble staying warm I would focus on insulation above your base layer. Make sure you were a warm hat and gloves. Bring a thicker fleece, add a vest, add a wool sweater, or see if you can pick up a high loft jacket or vest on sale somewhere.

More thought on my Outdoor clothing recommendations

The characteristics to look for in a base layer is something that can wick sweat effectively — to help keep you drier while you are on the move. Beyond that, you actually don't want your base layer to provide much warmth.

As Verber wrote above, when you feel cold — say when at rest or at camp — just put on additional layer(s) — such as a wind or rain shell jacket when cold winds are blowing, or an insulation layer (fleece, down, or synthetic insulation jacket) if it's colder. For really cold weather, you can put on all three layers — base (to wick the skin dry of perspiration), insulation (to retain warmth), and shell (to block out wind or rain).

When you are in motion again, you will soon be shedding some layers — which is easy enough to do. But the thing you want to avoid is an overly warm base layer — because the whole system will fail if your base layer causes you to soak in sweat instead of minimizing and moving out perspiration. And you can't shed your base layer unless you want to hike nekkid…

I've tried all sorts of wicking materials (living in Florida most of the year offers good testing grounds). Personally, I have come to the conclusion that merino wool is the only base layer for all seasons.

I am happy to report that lightweight merino in the 150-165 gm/meter range is extremely comfortable in summer. Not clammy like nylons and polyesters.

The only problem I'm still having in finding summer appropriate wool is that they are almost always in dark colors. Why not make summer-weight wool in summer colors?

BTW. Ibex is having their sale now! IBEXWEAR.COM