It has a wide variety of items in its product catalog, which allows them to make niche products and specific pieces of outdoor gear. You’ll first need to melt the paraffin wax using a double boiler while your fabric goes into the dryer to warm it up. A great analogy we like to use is you wouldn’t wax a dirty car so you wouldn’t waterproof a dirty item,” Allen explains. Elastic water-repellent polymers bind to fibers in the tent fabric and leave little spaces between them open for breathability. Our tester gave it one more chance after that, but on the pair of boots we tested it with, it performed marginally better but not well enough to warrant inclusion.

How to use Scotchgard™ Heavy Duty Water Shield

Even with this being the case, it is only recommended by Nikwax for use on gear such as tents, rucksacks, panniers and camera bags while there is no mention that it is appropriate for waterproof breathable gear. Waterproofing sprays were tested in Oregon and California and on a wide variety of products and gear items.There’s nothing worse than hiking in the rain and realizing that your backpack and everything inside it is now wet. Once you have sprayed the liquid onto the surface you must allow it to dry, whilst ensuring that your pets are kept well away until fully dry.

Scotchgard Scotchgard

It was easy to use right out of the packaging and held up very well on multiple tents with lots of water sprayed onto them.Down isn’t an effective insulator when wet, so keeping these items dry is crucial to their functioning. Even with this, the treated surface did not repel water as well as any of the other products tested. Each waterproofing product is a little different—some are applied to wet products and some to dry, for example, and they each require a slightly different optimal spraying distance from the item—so it’s important to read the bottle instructions before you begin. It’s still not a fully waterproof item—it wasn’t designed to be—and we’ll do our best not to soak it intentionally, but now we're less worried about it accidentally getting a little wet.