Review: Patagonia Nano-Air Jacket

If you’ve read “Let My People Go Surfing” by Yvon Chouinard you know the philosophy behind the Patagonia brand is pure(/they make all attempts to be pure). Along the lines of the book (I’ll review it sometime too..), I could only buy this Nano-Air if I knew I needed it, and would use it.. Bam! Have I ever.
The cold this year was around for so long I think it was some 6 months before it got its first wash – I read somewhere about something so good and useful you use it so often and can’t afford to wash it! This was it!

Pros:

• Pretty light ‘352 grams’ and the insulation is of the “90% heat retained when wet” variety, very cool
• Versatility; the “down rating” isn’t so dense that you get hot quickly
• From above it really has been great for ‘all seasons’ cold and a do it all jacket
• Has a DWR (water proofing) so water just beads right off (doesn’t exactly double as a raincoat however)
• It looks pretty sharp, but see “Cons”
• 3 pockets (this is a bit of a stretch as a point, but it’s better than 2 pockets?)
• Price was good when I got it, for Patagonia (haha).

Cons:

• Doesn’t pack down well without compression
• The outer material came tight, and has now lost its tension so it’s starting to look crappy (definitely not from washing it! And ruins the ‘sharp look’)
• It’s not for when you are going to be really cold, it’s a midweight. + try and find a Patagonia response on what the rating is on a Down scale.
• They didn’t have the hoodie version in the shop!

I love this jacket, it’s an absolute winner – the nano tech wet-but-still-warm idea combined with DWR makes it the all round go-to jacket for travel, cold walks/trail runs when you get caught in a downpour!

All all costs I’m keeping this one, it’s not going on any races to get lost or destroyed!!