Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Reviewing the SCOTTEVEST Hoodie

Some time back I mused about SCOTTEVEST and their fascinating, pocket-laden garments.

I won't reinvent the wheel by repeating my thoughts. Recently I obtained another of their Cotton Hoodies. One can never have too many hoodies in the Bay Area, in my opinion. Our microclimate lends itself to that sort of outer-garment.

And I do like to carry lots of junk.

I already have a hoodie from a prior purchase. I opted for a different color this time. Contact with SCOTTEVEST acknowledged some concerns I had about prior purchases. Mainly the sticky zippers.

So, on to my recently-obtained hoodie:

Pros:
  • Damn but this thing is comfortable!
  • A fairly-ridiculous number of pockets I can use.
  • Little touches, such as a microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses and a keychain on an extendable cord, are included.
Cons:
  • The zippers are still sticky. They mostly work, but they haven't improved since my purchase of my previous hoodie and those zippers inconveniently stick a fair amount.
  • Requires very special care in washing. Seriously. Pay attention to the instructions and do NOT put one of these in the dryer on anything but very low heat!
Conclusions: I'm still a little on-the-fence over this. For the price, I'd expect better quality zippers so I'm not tearing open my pockets to try to access a cell phone or a flashlight or whatever.

That said, it's warm, comfortable, and the stitching and cloth seems pretty durable. My older hoodie has held up quite well in the time I've had it. I suspect the new one will do the same.

The special care is a bit annoying, especially in winter when I can't exactly put clothes outside to dry in any kind of reasonable amount of time (hello rainy season!), but it's not really all that of a downer. I just pull it out of a low tumble cycle early and line-dry it and I haven't had problems.

If they beefed up the zippers, I'd have to hail this as a "must-have". Until then, I'd recommend this as a "nice-to-have, but with caveats". At least the two-year warranty is a nice thing.

And, as I've previously said, SCOTTEVEST has top-notch customer service, so if I had to exchange/return the hoodie, I'm sure I wouldn't have problems.

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