Which is warmer, cotton or down? Actually, it is not absolute.
Our country spans across multiple temperature zones. The areas north of the Yangtze River, especially the northern regions, are really cold in winter. In the cold winter, the two most important cold-resistant clothing that accompany us are “cotton clothes” and “down clothes“.
Down clothes have become popular in the past three or four decades. Earlier, due to the backward economic conditions, cotton clothes were more common. In our childhood memories, cotton clothes are an indelible and eternal memory.
Today, I will give you a detailed introduction to cotton clothes and down clothes, as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages.
1. Cotton clothes
First, let’s introduce the fabrics of cotton clothes. In addition to the most traditional cotton, the current mainstream cotton clothes fabrics in the world are mainly artificial warm cotton fabrics: “P cotton” PRIMALOFT, Thinsulate cotton, “C cotton” Climashield, “Arc’teryx C cotton” Coreloft, POLARTEC ALPHA cotton, G-loft of Carencia, Plumafill of Patagonia, ThermoBall of The North Face, etc.
Advantages: Cotton clothes are not as water-resistant as down jackets. In the case of moisture and water, the filling of cotton clothes will not change its structure, the air storage capacity will not change greatly, and the warmth effect will not be significantly different from that in dryness. Moreover, cotton clothes do not drill down like down, so there is no need to worry about the situation of wearing thinner and thinner like down.
Disadvantages: In the current consumer field, cotton clothes still cannot achieve the fluffy effect of down, and can only win by thickness. At the same time, because cotton clothes are not as fluffy as down, they cannot achieve the same compressibility as down, so cotton clothes often give people a bloated, bulky and unsightly feeling.
2. Down jackets Duck down is divided into: white duck down and gray duck down; goose down is divided into white goose down and gray goose down;
In terms of quality: white goose down ≈ gray goose down > white duck down ≈ gray duck down;
In terms of price: white goose down > gray goose down > white duck down > gray duck down.
Regarding the quality of down, the industry uses the indicator [cleanliness] to measure it. The national standard requires that the cleanliness of down jacket products must be above 450, 600 is considered medium, 800 is high-quality down, and 1000 is the top of the industry.
Down jackets that do not meet the cleanliness standards will have duck smell and fishy smell, which is not only unpleasant, but also easy to cause skin allergies.
How warm a down jacket is depends on four indicators: filling volume, fluffiness, down content, and filling material.
Among them, the higher the filling amount and fluffiness, the warmer the down jacket is, but the clothes are also bulkier and more expensive.
Advantages: Because of the strong fluffiness, the biggest advantage of down jackets is that they have superb warmth retention effect and are very light at the same time. Even if the down jacket is very thick for the ultimate warmth retention effect, as long as the fluffiness is high enough, it can still be much lighter than a wool coat in weight.
Disadvantages: The fatal flaw of down jackets is that they are afraid of water. Once the down jacket is wet, the down will shrink into a ball. During outdoor sports, the evaporation of sweat forms small droplets, which may penetrate the fabric and directly wet the down. At this time, the air storage effect of the down will be greatly reduced, and no matter how high the fluffiness of the down is, it will lose its due warmth retention effect. Moreover, down jackets will burrow, especially in the case of a lot of exercise. Over time, the down content will decrease, and the warmth retention performance of the down jacket will also be affected.
3. Which is warmer, down jacket or cotton jacketWith the arrival of winter, more and more people have begun to choose to wear down jackets or cotton jackets, but on the question of which is warmer, many people will give their own different opinions. According to Darcy’s understanding over the years, down jackets are warmer and more frost-resistant than cotton jackets in most cases.
1. The animal down of down jackets has better warmth retention.Down jackets are filled with animal down and hair, so down jackets can effectively delay the heat conduction between the human body and the outside world. Therefore, the heat emitted by the human body can form a closed loop inside the down jacket, so the down jacket has a good warm and frost-resistant effect. Although cotton jackets have a certain warming effect, they cannot effectively prevent the heat conduction between the human body temperature and the outside world, so the warming effect of cotton jackets is not as good as that of down jackets.
2. In dry air, down jackets are warmer than cotton jackets.You should know that in winter, the air will appear abnormally dry. Therefore, in this case, the warmth retention of down jackets can be clearly reflected. Although cotton jackets also have a certain warmth retention effect, the longer we stay outside, the warmth retention of cotton jackets will become worse and worse. Therefore, if we are outdoors for a long time, we must choose down jackets instead of cotton jackets.
3. When the air is humid, the warmth retention of cotton jackets is better than that of down jackets.In fact, the reason why many people think that the warmth retention of cotton jackets is better than that of down jackets is that when the air is humid, down jackets will have hair accumulation. In this case, the warmth retention effect of down jackets will naturally decline significantly. Since cotton jackets will not have cotton accumulation, in this case, the warmth retention of cotton jackets is naturally better than that of down jackets.
Conclusion:
The advantages of down jackets are lightness and convenience; the disadvantages are hair leakage and moisture resistance; and the advantages of cotton jackets are moisture resistance, but they are too bloated.
Although the warm-keeping principle of cotton jackets is similar to that of down jackets, cotton jackets are not imitations of down. The birth of artificial cotton jackets is because down has natural defects, and these defects are completely absent in cotton jackets. It can be said that although the purpose of both is to keep warm, cotton jackets and down jackets are actually complementary.
In short, down jackets are more suitable for static scenes, and outdoor mountaineering enthusiasts generally wear down jackets; cotton jackets are more suitable for dynamic scenes, and the military around the world generally uses cotton jackets as cold-proof equipment.
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