Ever wish you could clean and maintain your expensive breatheable jackets in one step? Grangers has released a new product to do just that. We put it to the test.
I have a pair of what I like to refer to as ‘loaner gloves’. They’re an old pair of Mountain Hardwear mountaineering gloves. They utilize conduit and are basically shells that rely on a liner glove for insulation. If family or friends come visit to go ski and forget their gloves, this is what I loan them. I bought them in 2004 and pretty heavily used them at the time. They’ve been on ski slopes, up mountains, and on two different continents. In that time period I have cleaned them exactly once.
These were the gloves I thought of when I saw Grangers 2 in 1 cleaner. The company claims that the cleaner will clean your outdoor gear and restore the DWR coating of the product. If there was anything that would test the limits of this claim, the loaner gloves would be it. So, I set aside the left glove for a control and went about the business of washing the right glove.
Once cleaned, the glove was visibly darker than the control glove. It would appear that the cleaning part of the 2-in-1 formula worked as advertised. As an added bonus, there was no smell like the NikWax Tech Wash that I usually use on all my outdoor gear.
So what about the waterproofing claims? For that, I’d have to compare the washed glove to the control glove. I took both gloves and poured 2 tablespoons of water on the surface of each glove. On the control glove, there was no water beading and the water soaked into the glove almost immediately. On the washed glove, there was a bit of beading and it took a couple seconds longer for the fabric to appear wet.
Obviously, this cleaner isn’t going to work miracles. My 6 year old gloves are not going to start acting like they’re brand new just because I washed them in a cleaning solution. However, I did observe a marked difference between the uncleaned and the cleaned gloves. So, there seems to be some truth behind the claims on the bottle.
After the test, I hand washed the control glove with the cleaner to see how much dirt would come out of the gloves. A rather disgusting mud colored water resulted. Needless to say, the cleaner certainly pulls the dirt out of the fabric. Judging solely on the color of the water, it appears that Grangers 2-in-1 cleans just as well as NikWax Tech Wash. If you’re looking to save an added step over your normal gear cleaning routine, you might want to check out Grangers 2-in-1.
Product sample provided by the manufacturer for review purposes.
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