Very few people going out in the mountains regret buying a down jacket. They are comfortable, pack up small, last for ages, and are extremely warm for their weight. However, down is not very effective at insulating when it’s really wet, and it’s more difficult to care for than a synthetically insulated jacket. A down jacket is great for most uses, and excels in cold and dry conditions, but for damp places a synthetic jacket is often a better bet.

There’s loads of complicated methods for determining how warm a jacket will be, and few of them are useful. Skip the complexity and get to the point: the easiest way to tell how warm a jacket will be is to look at how thick it is: a thicker jacket will almost always be warmer than a thin one. Another method is to look at how much down is in the product (the fill weight), and a higher weight of down usually means a warmer jacket. Jackets with less than 150 grams of down in are relatively lightweight, jackets with approximately 200-250 grams of down offer medium warmth, and anything above 300 grams of down is a heavyweight and very warm down jacket. If the product doesn’t display how much down is in it then don’t buy it – that’s like buying a climbing rope without knowing how long it is.

Fill Power

It’s easy to confuse fill power and fill weight, but don’t get drawn in. Fill weight is simply how many grams of down is in the product, while fill power refers to the quality of that down, with a greater number indicating greater quality. Roughly speaking, down above 700 fill power is very good down and down above 800 fill power is exceptional down. A down jacket with a small amount of high fill power down won’t be as warm as a heavyweight jacket with low fill power down, but it will be warmer for its weight. The fill power numbers that we state are minimum values, and through Down Codex® you can see the exact fill power of the down batch in your jacket.

Depending on the source birds, down may be grey or white in colour. Grey down is more common than white down and is sometimes regarded as less desirable because it may sometimes be seen through translucent or lightly coloured fabrics. However, colour has no bearing on the down’s thermal performance or cleanliness, and in the vast majority of products an end user will not even be aware of it.

Most of the down that we buy is grey. However, in some products with lightweight and lightly-coloured shell or lining fabrics we pay an additional premium for white down. White down is permitted to contain a small percentage of grey down or ‘black spots’, as obtaining a completely pure white down naturally is not practicable. These black spots do not affect performance and the down functions identically whether it is white or dark. As down moves inside baffles the position or even appearance of these spots is only ever temporary. It is possible to buy pure white down where there are no black spots, but this down has undergone an additional processing stage where it is sorted by hand. As a result, its price is much higher and it is available only in limited quantities.

Our down undergoes testing before it leaves our down supplier, once it reaches the garment or sleeping bag factory, and some final production garments are tested to ensure that the down meets the specification that we require.

Relatively few down jackets are fully waterproof, because even if the fabrics themselves are waterproof the seams can leak. The extra construction involved in taping the seams of a down jacket means that waterproof down jackets tend to be heavier than conventional ones, making them arguably less suited to difficult mountain conditions. However, they make fantastic day-to-day jackets for living in cold and wet climates, they double as good jackets for lift-skiing, and are very much at home in easier terrain. Our best-selling Triton is one such waterproof down jacket.

Water resistant down

Most of our down jackets don’t use water resistant down, and we instead prefer to use water resistant fabrics to stave off dampness in the insulation.

Down jackets aren’t usually the best choice for use in damp environments and if you’re expecting lots of rain then a down jacket is among the worst things to wear. In typical Scottish winter conditions a down jacket can last a fair while before being soaked, but spindrift, damp layers and precipitation can eventually waterlog them, and a synthetic jacket is usually a better bet.

On bluebird days a down jacket can work out well, however, and they provide warmth, pack-size and weight benefits over synthetic jackets. Our Firestorm jackets offer significantly more weather protection than most down jackets and have been designed to cope with more serious mountain weather than many down jackets are.

Is your down ethically sourced?

In short, it’s as ethically sourced as it can be. We have been a leader in changing the way that the entire industry has approached down sourcing, and we have written extensively on this issue. For further information please refer to our Down Codex website, which is exclusively about down sourcing, and the blog articles here.

How long do down jackets last?

Down jackets should last a long time. For most people their wearing is only seasonal, which prolongs their lifespan, and the insulation itself should last most users for a decade or more. Outer fabrics can tear, however, and these are usually repaired without too much difficulty. Take pride in a worn jacket and do whatever you can to prolong its life.