DRY LIGHT TEC

When we started designing our new waterproof, breathable Dry Light Tec fabrics, MontBell had an extensive list of demanding criteria—the fabrics needed to be highly water resistant, breathable, lightweight, compact, durable and comfortable. Now, after achieving success, we can confidently recommend Dry Light Tec as an ideal outer-shell fabric.

Dry Light Tec fabrics feature a very thin, very lightweight, interior coating of polyurethane that's only 40-50 microns thick. This micro-porous coating is highly water resistant and highly breathable. The thousands of tiny micro-pores are large enough to allow body moisture to escape but too small to let rain drops in. In addition, because the coating is hydrophilic ("water loving"), it absorbs moisture from your body and spreads it out along the lining before it can condense. As a result, you feel drier.

To further improve durability and comfort, we use a special technique to apply microscopic drops of coating material on the outside of the interior coating in a textured pattern. Because different sizes of drops are used in a random pattern, the surface of the fabric is somewhat uneven. When touched by the skin, this uneven surface feels much drier than traditional coatings, which are totally smooth. As a result, Dry Light Tec fabrics feel dry, not clammy, even when they are wet.

Dry Light Tec fabrics are durable and do not lose their water-resistant performance even after heavy use. To demonstrate this in our laboratory, we rubbed the fabric's coated surface with a 200g weight for 100 minutes and measured no decline in water resistance.

Dry Light Tec fabrics offer a breathability rating of 12,000 g/m2/24h. And they have high water-resistant performance of more than 20,000 mm/ square cm initially (guaranteed) and 10,000 mm/cm2 after 20 washings (guaranteed).