Sprayway Mylas Down Jacket – The Stuffing

What’s inside is 700-fill power duck down with a water-repellent Teflon-based treatment to ward off dampness. Duck down is cheaper than the more expensive goose variety and used to have a tendency to smell, well, ‘ducky’.

‘Better processing seems to have changed that and the Mylas doesn’t smell strongly at all.’

Better processing seems to have changed that and the Mylas doesn’t smell strongly at all. The advantage of the water-repellent treatment is that the down resists water better if you do get caught out in heavy rain.

But also – and our experience backs this up – treated down dries faster and doesn’t clump together like untreated down, so the jacket also retains more of its original performance without special drying treatment using a big tumbler drier and ‘down balls’ or similar to agitate the fill during drying.

Sprayway Mylas Down Jacket – Performance

Sprayway doesn’t normally ‘do’ down jackets, mostly leaving the fluffy stuff to sister brand Mountain Equipment, but new this winter is a pair of 700 fill-power duck down jackets, the Mylas for men and the Lark for women.

It’s a neat, unpretentious design complete with a built-on hood, adjustable hem and pockets inside and out. Looks smart too with a colour contrast lining fabric and smooth-running, moulded-tooth zips all-round. Inside the quilted baffles is 140g of 700 fill-power water-resistant duck down.

Bang In The Middle

What the Mylas isn’t is spectacularly light or impressively warm for the weight. Some of that may be down to the quilted down compartment pattern, which means more thin seams to shed heat and some, for us at least, because the fit is quite generous. On the plus side it’ll fit more people, but if it’s loose on you, it’l be less efficient as an insulator.

Pack size is middling again, it’s very definitely not an ultra-lightweight, stick it in a pack pocket sort of thing, more like a largish melon…

Water Resistant Down

What is nice at this price is water-resistant down. It doesn’t mean you can treat the Mylas like a rough-and-tumble synthetic jacket, but if you do get caught out in a heavy shower, it holds up pretty well and recovers its loft more fully and more quickly than untreated down. Think of it as an insurance policy and you won’t be far wrong.