Heading into the colder months, you may have discovered that your rain jacket isn't as waterproof as you had hoped. An RMIT expert explains the science behind waterproof clothing and how to extend the life of your jacket.
Carolina Quintero Rodriguez, Senior lecturer, School of Fashion & Textiles
"It's important to understand the different types of water-proof fabrics/jackets available in the market:
- Waterproof: Built to stop rain completely with a membrane and fully taped seams.
- Water-resistant: Slows water down and handles light showers but will eventually let water through.
- Water-repellent: Just describes the surface beading effect from chemical finishes. This can be applied to both waterproof and non-waterproof fabrics.
- Rainproof/Weatherproof: Marketing terms brands use to mean "pretty much waterproof."
"Waterproof jackets use microscopic membranes (like Gore-Tex ePTFE) with billions of tiny pores that block water droplets while letting sweat vapor escape. A chemical finish on the outer fabric makes water bead and roll off.
"Rain jackets lose their waterproofing over time due to contamination from body oils, dirt, and sunscreen, plus physical wear from things like backpack straps and UV exposure.
"These simple maintenance steps can extend jacket life for years: wash gently with specialised cleaners to remove contamination, apply low heat to reactivate the water-repellent coating (heat makes the flattened water-repelling molecules stand back up), and reapply durable water repellent coating when needed with spray-on or wash-in products."
