Wool it would appear is ideal, but for those of us who have skin softened by the comforts of modern life wool has one drawback, it can be infuriatingly itchy! No matter how many people assure me that I will become accustomed to it in time and however much I try to get along with traditional woven wool shirts, they still drive me to distraction!

So when I unpacked the ‘Antartica shirt’ sent to us for review by Country Covers I was delighted; here it would seem was the answer to all my irritation.  Made from 70% merino wool hercosett treated to render it non-irritant, the remaining 30% is a non flammable material called Nomex used in the production of fireproof clothing for fighter pilots and fire fighters, so it would certainly seem to be ideal for working around flames. Unlike 100% wool garments this caused me no irritation at all, being pleasant to wear even against the skin and the circular knitted construction makes the arctic shirt as soft and comfortable as a synthetic fleece.

Whilst not as robust as the popular NZ wool shirts, for example, it would not shrug off brambles as readily, it was far less restrictive and bulky. Thus I was happy to forgo some resilience in a shirt that could be so comfortably worn under a jacket.

I was not disappointed with its ability to keep me warm either; I wore it throughout winter spending every day on the chilly hills of Wales whilst training a young hawk. Its generous zipped roll neck, scooped back and thumb loops ensured that those areas so often overlooked by many manufacturers such as the small of the back, neck and wrists were kept snug and toasty. I did notice that it seemed to stretch a bit and became quite baggy, resembling the sort of oversized ¾ length jumper females appear to feel is required attire for an evening curled up on the sofa with a family size galaxy bar! Perhaps I had washed it at the wrong temperature as it did not have any discernable washing instructions, but this did little to stop me reaching for it whenever I went out to the hills; finally I had a warm comfortable wool shirt that didn’t itch, what did I care if it was a bit baggy?

So when I packed my rucksack for a week of winter Bushcraft in the frozen Canadian north, the arctic shirt was one of the first items in. Temperatures were expected to be as low as -30 C which would really put it to the test; when we arrived the locals told us how lucky we were that it was so unusually warm this winter only -22!!

I wore the arctic shirt as my first insulating layer constantly, removing it only when having a chilly wash and on the few occasions where physical labours forced me to strip to my base layer so as to avoid sweating, as perspiration, if not avoided, would freeze in my clothing when I relaxed.

Sleeping the night in a lean-to shelter without a sleeping bag at -20 I woke to discover that my synthetic windproof trousers had been perforated in several places by rogue sparks from the enormous long log fire that had provided a isolated pool of warmth in the otherwise icy and inhospitable night, yet my double wool upper layers consisting of the arctic shirt with a second pure wool shirt over the top were undamaged even though they were speckled here and there with ash from the fire.

My time in Canada drew all too quickly to an end, and I was on my way home as delighted with my arctic shirt as I had been when I first received it.  But I was too tired to notice that it had suffered a neat circular 5mm hole in the collar which looked like it had been burnt there, perhaps the result of an errant spark falling from a tinder bundle being nurtured to flame (I only spotted it whilst unpacking in the UK). But I was a little perplexed; surely a wool and nomex blend should not have burnt so easily - a test was in order!

I decided to test one portion of the shirt by exposing it to a shower of sparks from a ferocium rod, held one foot above the garment, and another portion of the shirt by allowing burning fragments to fall onto it from an ignited red cedar tinder bundle held one foot above. Both of these closely recreate common occurrences for wilderness clothing in use.

The results were surprising, both the fire steel and the tinder bundle test resulted in damage to the shirt; wherever the hottest sparks from the fire steel or the burning fragments from the tinder bundle made contact the fabric noticeably darkened and when these darkened spots were rubbed with a finger the affected material disintegrated.

Being thorough, I repeated the test with a traditional woven wool shirt from a well respected NZ company, but neither the tinder bundle test nor the fire steel were able to inflict any noticeable damage.
I had confirmed the cause of the mysterious hole, but I was still no closer to understanding why a “fire retardant shirt” was disintegrating so readily; searching through the available literature from Country Covers revealed the answer:

 “The fabric used is a circular knitted nomex/wool with the aramid fibre confined to the outer surface of the fabric. The zipro-treated wool crumbles before ignition, so there is no melt hazard.” It would appear that the circular knit being more open than a traditional weave exposes more of the fibres’ surface area to the heat source, the zipro treatment, acting as intended, causes it to crumble before risk of ignition to prevent the wearer becoming a little too hot under the collar! So, what conclusion am I to draw for you after six months of testing both here in the UK and in the bitter cold of northern Canada combined with the evidence of this test?

The strongest argument for the shirt is that I am still to be found wearing it when the mercury plummets; six months on the little burn holes from the tests haven’t frayed or run. It’s still the most comfortable wool shirt I own even though its baggy appearance and odd hole add considerable ‘Character value’ of the sort normally found adorning aged farmers. Though it is not resilient enough to tolerate a foolish level of behaviour with fire steels and burning embers, it will resist normal sparks cast from a fire without damage and I can still curl up next to my hearth with confidence that I am not going to be shrink wrapped in melting petrochemicals whilst I sleep.

www.country-covers.com  www.arktisltd.co.uk
Stuart - Success is not measured by what you have, but by what you can do without.