What are your favorite sleep socks?

Have you looked at Possum Down socks?

Fleece socks are pretty good too, and more durable, if slightly heavier,  than possum down. REI and Acorn both make a thick, burly, warm, and comfy fleece “sleeper sock”. I like fleece as it can work well as a backup pair of hiking socks. But don’t listen to me, as I’m the guy that wears his Darn Tough and Smartwool hiking socks in his sleeping bag. Then again, I have my bag professionally washed every 20-25 uses.

interesting.

MUSK OX
The musk ox lives in the frigid Arctic, and its fur is multiple times warmer than wool or even alpaca. It’s a protected species in Alaska, and like bison, the American musk ox was once dangerously close to extinction. Fiber made from the musk ox’s undercoat is known as quiveut, or quiviut, and is extremely light and fine. It’s also very rare, since it’s usually harvested by hand-combing the animals or collecting fibers from the ground after they’ve naturally been shed.

Where to buy:

Quiveut

At her studio in Alaska, artist Margaret Rye weaves and knits custom quiveut blankets, shawls and accessories — including slipper socks you won’t want to take off all winter. Each order is knitted by hand (allow 4 weeks) or on a machine (allow 2 weeks) using 40 percent quiveut blended with Merino wool or silk for elasticity. Since these are handmade socks made from hand-harvested fibers, they don’t come cheap: women’s sizes range from $195-$225 and men’s are $210-$240. If you’re handy with a pair of needles, you can buy a skein of sock yarn instead for $75.

omg that stuff is gorgeous! I love the colors she uses.

hmmm, would I rather get a DCF hammock tarp or a musk ox wool circular scarf? (I’m going through a circular scarf stage..)

I hadn’t thought of this until you asked, but I have a few pair of Bombas merino wool socks that I wear for work whenever they are clean.  Most comfortable casual socks I have.  I use Darn Tough for hiking, and have used Smartwool for that too.  I have one looser pair of socks – not positive, but maybe Wright, that I like better for sleeping.  It’s more comfortable than the hiking socks, which are tougher.  That’s what I like about these Bombas socks too.

I can’t help because my favourite sleep socks are synthetic, really cheap mix of polyester and acrylic with silicon dots on the bottoms, followed by Goosefeet gear down slippers

Love my Possum Down Bushman’s Friend socks for sleeping:

Got mine from Zpacks a few years ago. Much cleaner, warmer, and usually drier than yesterday’s hiking socks.

http://www.zpacks.com/accessories/possum_socks.shtml

— Rex

Can’t help the OP either because my favorite sleep sock is actually a lycra fin sock that I adapted to backpacking. I have never been a fan of sleeping in socks and since my feet are in tight socks all day, I was looking for something with a looser fit and easy to put on and take off and also only wear socks to protect the bag and not for warmth. The bonus is when I make the midnight stargaze run, I can keep these on and because of the tight weave, nothing sticks to them such as dirt and duff so I can slide back into the bag quickly and effortlessly.

And they also work good with swim fins too!

Over the years I’ve tried a number of different sleeping sock. For the last few years I’ve used these     Drew Brady Thermal Sleep Socks  and they have been my favorite.  About 100 nights of use plus a few times I hiked in them due to wet or worn out socks.

Synthetic, yes.  I tried possum down gloves once and they had holes in them after limited use.  I was going to try the possum down socks but after the glove experience I decided not to.  Disclaimer-I’m cheap.

I don’t sleep with socks in mild temps, but when it’s cold I wear Goose Feet Gear Down Socks:

https://goosefeetgear.com/products/down-socks/

In mild temps I wear thin Smartwool liners, mostly in an attempt to keep the quilt clean.  When it’s cold you couldn’t pry my GFG down socks from my warm dry feet.

The things that matter are fluffiness and loose fit, mainly loose fit.  Socks that are tight restrict blood flow and make your feet cold.

I like my thick REI brand wool socks for sleeping in the shoulder seasons. I’m strictly a 3 season backpacker except for the occasional overnighter when there’s a mild winter night.

It’s bizarre how difficult it is to find the right thing. I had one obnoxiously red pair for men that was great but too big and I would wake up having lost one from my foot and trying to fish it from the depth of my bag.

I found these:

I like the idea of a simple, thin sole so I can skip putting boots on at 5 am for that bathroom break. If they are too heavy for my taste then I will just keep them for house socks. $10 bucks is worth the risk.

In this video Shug says he likes sleeping with Possum Down socks. He likes being in the winter wonderlands of Minnesota:

I like DeFeet Woolie Boolie low socks. For me, I only need to keep my feet warm, no need to extend to my ankles and above.

I use a set  of loose fitting  cotton ankle socks . Just loose enough to comfortable but able to stay on.

But don’t listen to me, as I’m the guy that wears his Darn Tough and Smartwool hiking socks in his sleeping bag.

Me too.

When it comes to knitted or woven textiles thermal insulation is primarily affected by 3 factors in connection–fiber diameter, thickness (“loft”), and density of weave or knit.  The smaller the diameter, if you keep the other two constant, the more air it will slow down thus increasing thermal insulation values.

Probably next factor in importance is hollowness or lack thereof of the fibers, but ultimately this takes a back seat to fiber diameter. It will make a difference if all other factors are similar, but not by huge degrees.

When I first started learning about fibers, I temporarily believed the marketing hype of various sites, for example talking about Alpaca vs Merino, and people saying Alpaca was 2 to 3 times warmer. Such claims don’t stand up to closer scrutiny. It’s basically impossible for different animal fibers to result in such large differences, especially when diameter sizes are relatively similar and everything else is also similar.  At most, you may see from about a 20 to 35% difference in thermal insulation values, and if towards the latter end–that’s with extremes being present (say unusually small diameter AND hollow fibers vs thicker and much less medullatted/hollow fibers).

And there are definite trade offs either way. Those super thin fibers tend to not be near as durable as the thicker ones.  Or, hollow fibers tend to be more stiff and less compressible than solid ones and also tend to come out of the yarn more.  Ultimately, for real world durability, you need a balance of factors.  There are some differences in tensile and bending strengths between different fibers, but they are not huge differences. For example, per similar diameter size, alpaca fibers tend to have higher tensile strength than merino wool fibers, but have less bending strength and resiliency (so merino holds it shape better, but alpaca will deal with abrasion and pulling stresses a bit better).

All this to say, is that the exaggerated claims of specialty fibers and sellers of same really tend to be quite exaggerated in their marketing.

I’ve not tried or even held possum down made materials, but from what I’ve read about it, it seems fairly similar in properties to angora rabbit fur.  Both tend to be rather fine/small diameter and rather medullated (hollow), both of which contribute to an increase in thermal insulation values but decreases durability.  Both are often blended with larger and more durable fibers.

I have a pair of socks with a high angora rabbit fur content and they are pretty warm for their weight, but need to be hand washed (or the equivalent) and non tumbled dried with gentle and ph balanced soap (all animal/protein based fibers do not deal well with high ph).

All animal based fibers have excellent odor control and prevention.  For optimal balance of properties, I would consider something like 40 percent angora rabbit or possum fur to around 40% at least baby alpaca and about 20% nylon as far as content. Or, 30% angora/possum fur, 30 percent baby alpaca, 20% silk, and 20% nylon which will be a bit more durable, but slightly less warm.

If there are not products out there to such specifications, you will find that there are many different specialty yarns out there, and you could have a knitter combine two or more to get something similar.

As Darn Tough has shown though, knitting techniques also make a big difference with these fibers which by nature tend to be somewhat fragile compared to synthetics (one slight exception is silk. For a natural, protein based fiber, it is fairly tough and strong).

Btw, the nice thing about alpaca vs merino is that it has half the moisture regain of the latter.  I suspect this is probably somewhat true of other highly medullatted and yet still can be fine/small diameter type fibers. It makes sense–there is less solid material to absorb water.

(Edit to add, there is some variation along the above lines, but the difference between alpaca and merino seems to be widest. This does not apply to the cellulose based fibers, which by nature are very absorbent, whereas alpaca, merino, and some of the other animal based fibers tend to also have outer fiber water shedding properties).

Another option for even colder temps, is taking an inner layer of tightly woven mostly animal/protein fiber based fabric (probably hard to find, except for silk) and a typical outer tightly woven nylon or polyester fabric and using Kapok fiber as a fill.  Kapok has similar thermal insulation values as around 500 fp duck down. It’s highly hydrophobic because of the thick wax layers on each fiber. It doesn’t compress as well as even low quality, high feather content down or even Apex, but in a booty or the like, not really that big of a deal.  Odd side benefit of using Kapok fiber as a fill: if you happen to somehow drop it in a stream or the like, it will float (and downside is because of the wax coating on cellusotic based material, it’s also highly flammable).

Over the past year, I started having a bad reaction to wool and have been working on replacing my wool garments with synthetic ones.  Now that winter camping is here, this has become a larger priority for me to sort out.

I’ve yet to buy them but for those who cannot buy wool for whatever reason, these synthetic booties from Enlightened Equipment seem like a great option and are roughly 1.5oz @ 2oz Apex, 2.1 oz @ 4oz Apex, and 3oz at 6oz Apex, all size large.

https://enlightenedequipment.com/sidekick-booties-custom/

Reviews seem favorable

https://backpackinglight.com/enlightened-equipment-booties-review/

That sucks Ian. Is it just sheep’s wool, or also other animal protein based fibers?  I’ve often thought that silk blended with Polygiene treated polyester would make for a pretty good fabric for outdoor use as to baselayers, socks, etc.

Yeah, the Apex booties from EE look nice.

Rather than actual socks, I made some leg warmers by cutting the arms off a fleece sweatshirt I found at the thrift store. I put some elastic around the tops of the sleeves so I can wear them as arm or leg warmers. When I sleep with them, I just pull them down to my ankles so they cover my feet. If I have to get up in the night, I pull them up to put on my shoes.