Anyone own a Warmlite VBL shirt or pants?

[Eric Blumensaadt]

What is the fabric of Warmlite’s VBL shirt and pants?

If it’s silnylon I may just make a set of VBLs from a pajama pattern. I did it for white camo parka and pants so I could do it again I guess. I think a pullover shirt could get away with a short zipper.

Thoughts?

 

[Franco Darioli]

“Stephenson’s Warmlite vapor barrier socks are made out a material they call “fuzzy stuff”, a knitted nylon fabric that is coated with urethane on one side”.
https://sectionhiker.com/stephensons-warmlite-vapor-barrier-socks/

see also
https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/55433/

[Jerry Adams]

I bought some fuzzy stuff and made a shirt and pants from it.

I felt that wearing it during the day wasn’t good because I sweated.  Although if it was really cold maybe it would be okay.  The sweat does stay next to your skin rather than out to your insulated clothing.

I felt that wearing it while sleeping wasn’t good either.  It’s a bit heavy – a light base layer, whatever I use for a mid insulated layer, and a sleeping bag that’s warm enough weighs less.  I think it would be good if I spent multiple days at very cold temperatures.  Otherwise sweat will gradually get your sleeping bag saturated with ice, become heavy, and lose much of it’s insulation value.

[JayC]

I have one of their shirts and some of their fabric.  The material is pretty neat, the shirt less so – it is cut like a dress shirt, and it is really hard to vent.  I have used the material to make vb mittens, which worked pretty well.   The shirt would be ok for sleeping in, but using it while active is really hard, at least compared to the rb designs shirts.

( I should probably point out I think vapor barrior clothing, besides socks, are pretty unnecessary in my experience, if I wear clothing that vents well, and de-layer and re-layer as needed.  )

 

[Jerry Adams]

Warmlite has sleeping bags with a VB liner.  You should sleep naked, or as close to it as possible.  They are very heavy.  They’d be good on arctic expeditions.

In the spirit of BPL, I think it would be better to wear VB shirt and pants.  The surface area of shirt and pants is less than the liner of a sleeping bag so there would be less weight of that heavy fabric.  And then you could wear your daytime insulation inside the sleeping bag – it needs to be outside the vapor barrier.  That would save some weight because you could have a lighter sleeping bag.  This would be for very cold over a number of days.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

So, should I make a VBL shirt and pants (separate garments) instead of a one-piece “union suit”?

I can’t see me wearing a VBL layer during the day (except my neoprene diver’s sox).

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