Part of the testing I do is keeping tabs on some of the long term usage pieces I have circulating around to see how different aspects are holding up. One area of interest is down loft durability. It is my opinion that in most cases, loft loss observed in down gear is due to oil and dirt accumulation in the fill and not due to degradation of the down itself. It’s also my opinion that the washing procedures and products don’t work all that well for gear in this state. I’m sure there are cases of really long term degradation of low fill power down, but I think that most cases of perceived loft degradation is just oil accumulation and the washing procedure’s failure to remove them. YMMV, but I’ve had great success by throwing out the playbook here and going with my gut.
Over time, oils and dirt works it way through the shells and into the down fill. The oils then cause the fibrils to stick together instead of pushing out. Additionally, it causes the plumes to stick to each other and clump so they no longer roll off each other like they used to. Unfortunately, the down washes tend to use a formulation that is aimed at ” preserving natural oils “. That makes sense if you were trying to just wash something with a dirty shell or whatever, so that you don’t wash out favorable oils in the down. However, I would argue that if you have something with a dirty shell, but intact down, you should just spot wash. Furthermore, the recommended procedures tell you to use cold water. Once a down item is at the point where the fill is clumped up and not filling the chambers, it is most certainly laden with oils and neither the down wash, or the cold water will remove it. I feel like you could just wash these systems over and over again with down wash and cold water and they’ll come out clumped the same each time.
As part of my testing, I’ve intentionally taken on the task of reviving hard used and abused down gear that is in its most compromised state. For these items, I’ve found it works best to use very hot water and a detergent that will strip those oils out. I’ve used water so hot that I couldn’t even put my hand in it. I’ve used regular laundry detergent, Dr. Bronners and even straight up Dawn dish detergent for some of these. This strategy all started with gear used super hard on multiple thru hikes with grimy hikes rolling around in them. Most were washed the ” normal ” way with various down washes in cold water and these folks were basically about to just throw them out unless someone could revive them. So when I started trying this system, it was pretty low stakes, but I felt confident in it. Each item I’ve done this with has revived to close to 100%.
I recently retrieved the very first prototype of the SUL .75, which should make it about 8 years old. This is the lowest density and calculated loft of any item we make…..so the most susceptible to showing gaps if fill power is compromised. It’s been used hard and modified a few times. It’s been a sweater, a 1/4 zip, and a full zip. It’s been used as a strict static layer, a casual jacket, and even been abused as a semi-active and active layer. It’s been smooshed, sweated in, abraded, rained and snowed on, etc by several different people. It got to the point where there was a little bit of noticeable loft loss and clumping, which is the very moment I’ve been waiting for!
I washed it in hotter water than my hottest tap temperature. I filled half a sink with full hot out of tap and then boiled a kettle for the other half. The result was water that was just a bit too hot for me to hold my hand in for more than a couple seconds. Then I mixed in a bunch of Dr. Bronners and regular natural laundry detergent and washed by hand. Once the water was coll enough for me to do so, I made sure to compress the chambers and get all the air out. Then squeezed hot water and detergent through the whole thing…over and over….moving to different sections each time….until the water had cooled. Then I squeezed as much water out as I could and just chucked it in with my other laundry in our front loading machine during its regular rinse cycle, high spin cycle, and medium dry cycle. I would not do this in a top loading, agitator style machine and I also would always be super carful about dryer temps. I dry Argon 67 in it all the time and know that medium will not melt it. However, some medium cycles might get hot enough to melt 10d nylon. I did not use tennis balls or anything. Just in with all the other clothes. Might wanna be careful of sharp zippers, snaps, or other things on the other clothes that could rip 10d nylon.
Like many of the other oily down gear I’ve washed this way, it came out pretty much back to 100% loft. The 8 year old 950fp treated HyperDry down that was oily and clumped is now filling out the chambers like it did when it was brand new. I did a minimal amount of patting and distributing after the dryer, but it came out pretty evenly distributed.
