Water Resistant, Water Repellent or Waterproof Jackets?
How many times have you been scammed with Water Resistant Jackets? Me too… So, here I’m gonna publish some important information to understand better all the differences between those terms, which will help you to decide which waterproof jacket buy next time.
TL;DR: Buy only jackets IP-X4 or IP-X-5, or 5K (or higher K value), and then download this app to discover the best photo spots nearby
The Scam
Not sure if we can consider it as scam. Maybe it is more a lack-of-knowledge problem (from the customers). Anyways, here is the problem:
Usually, you gonna read things like “water resistant”, “water repellent” and “waterproof”. There are the meenings:
- Water Resistant is every single product that does not BREAKS when water reaches it. For example: A water resistant phone. Have you ever saw a jacket that gets broken when you dip it in water? No, right? Well… So… That’s the scam. All jackets and all clothes are Water Resistant!
- Water Repellent is every product that… that… I don’t know. Nobody knows… This term have no technical meaning. It means that there is some water protection. Some companies uses it, but there is no detailed meaning behind it. What we are sure, is that Water Repellent is a bit better than Water Resistant, because it kind of “avoid” water in some way.
- Waterproof is… is… it depends… A product can be have a waterproofness of IP-00, which means: “It is not waterproof” (we gonna talk about it below), but usually Waterproof means that the product avoids water. If you want to know how much avoids it, so, let’s see how it is measured.
To sum up: Water Proof > Water Repellent > Water Resistant
How Waterproofness is measured?
There are 2 ways to measure Waterproofness: IP-XX and K. Both are pretty much the same. You can measure the same jacket with the 2 different measurement units.
IP-XX
IP-XX is the most “professional” measurement unit. For example, if you are going to buy a jacket for sailing, or something more professional/work related, you probably gonna see the IP-XX unit, because IP-XX not only tells you how good is protecting you from the water, but also from dust.
When I say IP-XX I mean examples like IP-03, IP-55, IP-68, etc.
No, “XX” is not a number from 0 to 99. Actually XX are 2 different numbers. The first one goes from 0 to 6, and the second one from 0 to 8. So, the smaller IP-XX is IP-00, and the bigger one is IP-68.
In order to understand what those values means, let’s call it IP-AB.
Due to this article does not focus on dust protection, we’ll talk about the B value. But you can keep in mind that IP-0X means no dust protection, and IP-6X means no single dust is going to pass through your jacket.
Now, each value of B, means:
- 0: No water protection
- 1: Water falling vertically to your jacket, or water condensing in your jacket, is not gonna pass through your jacket.
- 2: Protected of water that reaches your jacket as spray, from 0° to 15° from the vertical line (for example, when the rain is falling with a small angle)
- 3: Protected of water that reaches your jacket as spray, from 0° to 60° from the vertical line (for example, any kind of regular rain)
- 4: Protected of water that reaches your jacket as a splash, from any angle.
- 5: Protected of water that reaches your jacket with low pressure, from any angle.
- 6: Protected of water that reaches your jacket with high pressure, from any angle.
- 7: Protected of water immersion. 30min, 1 meter depth.
- 8: Protected of water submersion. No time limit.
Again, just to be clear, those values means: IP-X0, IP-X1, IP-X2, …, IP-X7, and IP-X8.
What do I recommend? IP-X4 and IP-X5 are the best values. The splash protection is pretty useful if you are taking photos of cities (considering that cars could splash you water, or heavy winds).
K
k, as in 1000, is the most classic value that you may see. Usually in snowboard jackets. Those values goes from 0K to +40K
Each value of K means:
- 0K: No water protection.
- 1K: Rain resistant, but no rainproof. That’s the description you gonna read in internet, but it is wrong, due to all jackets are Rain Resistants. This value basically means that if a drop of water reaches your jacket, is gonna be there for a few minutes, and if you don’t remove it, with the time it’s gonna pass the jacket and you gonna get wet.
- 5K: Rainproof, but not under pressure. So, you get protected from rain. Cool.
- 20K: Waterproof, but no under pressure (getting confused? me too)
- 40K: Waterproof during extended time, pressure, and during inmersion
- +40K: Non-porous material (no way to anything pass through your jacket).
What do I recommend? 5K. That’s good enough to travel, photography, and the recommended value if you are going to catch the best photo spots nearby.
For example, my snowboard jacket is 10K, because when you fall over the snow (which there is water some times), it’s consider water pressuring the jacket, so, you need pressure protection.
You gonna say: “Hey, there is no 10K value in that table”. Yeah, because, as I told you, k as in 1000, so, it’s like a regular number. The bigger the number, the better.
Now, as you can see, IP-XX is really better describing the protection than K values. But, sadly, K values are more used on regular jackets.
I hope you enjoy it, and don’t forget to check out NoFilter app if you are a photographer, traveler or instagrammer!
