Waterproof Your Clothes By Waxing

Winter is here on the east coast, and the rainy season has returned in the West, one way or another, that means something wet is going to be falling from the sky.

Historically, before fancy synthetics like Gore-Tex were produced in numbers, the way to keep rain away was by waxing heavy cotton jackets and clothes. In the Pacific Northwest, this method was known as tinning, a term coined by Filson, the original producer of Tin Cloth. Tin Cloth is super-heavy cotton duck, which is essentially canvas, that has been waxed by a paraffin substrate and heated so that the wax bonds into the fibers of the cloth. This ultra-heavy canvas jacket, now made impervious to the weather, earned its name Tin Cloth.

Today, it’s really hard to beat. There are not many synthetics short of Cordura that can stand up to the might of Tin Cloth, and unfortunately, there aren’t many that can afford it either. But, we are here to rescue this notion. Available from Otterwax is a bar of wax made specifically for waxing your favorite articles of clothing and adding that killer waxed look to them and making them, too, impervious to rain.

Weighing in at $17.95 for a large bar, that’s enough wax to do a full jacket—with a little left over for touch ups. The application is simple: clean the jacket ’til there is nothing but jacket, and go to town with the wax. Apply liberally, then hit it with a hair dryer or heat gun and melt that wax into the fabric. Once done, you now have a badass waterproof jacket.