Why We Chose It: Versatile, practical and sustainable fill
If you’re looking for lightweight warmth, most people will tell you it doesn’t get better than natural down. They’re right, but down also has a few, ahem, downsides. For one, it doesn’t insulate so well if it gets wet. And it needs looking after pretty carefully to maintain optimum performance. That’s fine for a prized sleeping bag, but not so good for an outdoor blanket that you might want to lay out on dewy grass or damp sand.
That’s why we like Rumpl’s NanoLoft insulation. It’s a loose synthetic fill that looks and feels a lot like down, whilst being much more hardwearing and far easier to look after. This fill is encased in a similarly tough ripstop shell, which is also finished with a durable water repellent treatment to further enhance the blanket’s resistance to moisture. The result? A lightweight but warm take-anywhere, do-it-all blanket for casual outdoor adventures.
What Is The Rumpl NanoLoft Blanket Best Suited To?
Being lightweight and packable, this blanket is perfect to stuff in a rucksack or travel bag. It’s not really intended as a substitute for a backpacking quilt or sleeping bag, so we wouldn’t use it as the primary element of a sleep system (though it works well as an extra top layer), but for more general outdoor use – at the beach, on a campsite or in the back of a campervan – it is pretty much ideal.
It comes in 1-person or 2-person versions, each in a kaleidoscope of cool colours and pretty patterns. There’s even a ‘Flame’ edition in a more compact travel size, which has a proprietary, fire-resistant topside, so it won’t go up in flames if it catches a spark from a campfire or fire pit. Noice.
Eco Credentials
The NanoLoft blanket is sustainably made from 100% post-consumer recycled polyester. That includes both the shell fabric and the insulation, and the brand says each blanket uses at least 50 discarded plastic bottles, which is a fair amount of waste potentially saved from landfill. Thumbs up.
Construction and Performance
The NanoLoft uses a quilted stitch-through baffle construction, which effectively holds that warm, down-like loose synthetic fill in place. It’s not the most technical piece of kit out there, but the warmth for weight is still pretty competitive. The polyester fabric is soft to the touch for added cosiness too.
