What Is Gore-Tex, And Why Is It So Good?
- Henry
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Skiing Unlocked breaks down Gore-Tex, one of the best waterproof membranes on the market. But what makes it such a good material for your ski jacket?
If you have a ski jacket, there’s a good chance it is waterproof, made from a tough fabric designed to keep rain, wind and snow away from you ensuring you remain warm and dry.
Waterproofing is achieved by two different means – a basic version is simply to laminate fabric between plastic layers, much like you would a piece of paper during art classes. A more rugged and hard-wearing method, however, is to sandwich a waterproof plastic layer between a face fabric on the surface, and a liner.
Gore-Tex is one particular brand of this latter method. Thanks to a fluke of scientific engineering, the Gore family discovered not just how to produce a super waterproof material, but one that can breathe, too; that is, it lets sweat in the form of water vapour ventilate through pores in the jacket.
Gore-Tex materials remain the best materials on the market, despite other brands’ attempts to catch up. Alongside its technical prowess, there are a couple of other factors that make Gore-Tex super awesome for your skiing, including the designs and fabrics that Gore allow their material to be used with.
This is Gore-Tex, and why it is so good for your skiing.
What Is Gore-Tex?
Gore-Tex was invented by accident in 1969 by Wilbur Gore and his son, Robert. They had been playing around with a plastic known as polytetrafluoroethylene (catchy, right – this is almost always shortened to just PTFE), a substance that was thought to have waterproof but breathable properties but that no one had yet worked out how to harness.
Most of the Gore’s experiments had been focused around stretching the material slowly to create a thin fabric, but this had so far not yielded satisfactory results; the material was brittle and did not stretch enough to be useful. Getting nowhere, and running out of money, in frustration Robert grabbed a length of PTFE and pulled at it, hard.
The material expanded a massive amount – around 800% - but retained its integrity and, importantly, retained its structure. In the material, which was waterproof, there were millions of pores that had been created by the stretching that allowed water vapour to pass through.
Completely by accident, the Gores had created Expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene, or just “ePTFE”, which they quickly patented as Gore-Tex and produced their first rain coats in 1977, in collaboration with Seattle brand Early Winters.
Despite the patent expiring in 1997 and many other brands now manufacturing their own versions of ePTFE products, Gore-Tex remains one of the best performing breathable waterproof membranes on the market.
How Does Gore-Tex Work?
Gore-Tex works to keep you waterproof in the same way as a plastic bag does; it forms an impenetrable and impermeable barrier between the wet and windy outside and the warm and dry inside, closest to your skin.
Unlike simple plastic sheets, however, the pores in the membrane ensure it is still breathable, allowing sweat in the form of evaporated water vapour to pass through, helping relieve that feeling of being overly warm and sweaty when skiing in a waterproof jacket.
This is all relative, however, so don’t buy a Gore-Tex jacket for the Amazon – you won’t notice the breathability! This is because waterproof membranes like Gore-Tex require a difference in both temperature and humidity to create a differential that pulls sweat out of the jacket.
That remains ideal for skiing – the cold and dry conditions many of us ski in create a wide difference between the hot, sweaty interior of the jacket, creating ideal conditions to facilitate this moisture transfer!
This is not just ideal for ski jackets, but for a huge range of uses; Gore-Tex is widely used in wiring insulation because of these qualities, including in hospitals and on spaceships! In fact, Gore-Tex is one of the few human materials that can found on every planet humanity has visited!
Gore-Tex As a Mark of Quality
As I mentioned earlier, Gore-Tex remains one of the best waterproof membranes on the market, beating out all competition. To demonstrate this, you can look at the hydrostatic head – that is, the volume of water a square metre of the material can resist for 24hrs before leaking - of Gore-Tex Pro, their toughest product, and standard Gore-Tex.
Standard Gore-Tex gives a hydrostatic head of just shy of 30,000mm3, Gore-Tex Pro over 35,000mm3. That is huge. For reference, most other brands aim for 20,000mm3, and several manufacture ski jackets down to 10,000mm3 and call it a day. Quite simply, Gore-Tex products are, as they promise, guaranteed to keep you dry.
Many years ago, as part of their managed decline, The North Face moved away from Gore-Tex to their own version, Hyvent (now Dryvent) for their headline Summit Series range, arguing that they should back their own products for their own designs. They’re now back, however, realising the error of their ways and committing to making Summit Series as good as it once was (and trust me, it was amazing!)
But there’s more to Gore-Tex as a mark of quality than just their waterproof-ness. Gore-Tex will only pair their membranes with face fabrics and liners that they think match their high standards, and often will supply these themselves to ensure quality. C-Knit, an ultra-breathable movement-friendly liner is one example of this that has been taken up by a number of brands.
Finally, Gore will only licence Gore-Tex to be used in overall designs that they sign off on, meaning you can’t use Gore-Tex for any old project. You know, therefore, that if you see Gore-Tex being used in a jacket that it has been designed and manufactured to the highest of standards.
One of the reasons why Arc’teryx have always been considered an industry-leading brand is their extensive and exclusive use of Gore-Tex in their products. In fact, Arc’teryx were the first and so far only brand to be awarded a Gore-Tex jacket without first producing other waterproof items, demonstrating just how good some of their initial designs were!
Final Thoughts
Gore-Tex is changing, as environmental issues around ePTFE sees them shift away to Expanded Polyethelyne (ePE). This contains far fewer so-called forever chemicals and is remarkably better for the environment, and, whilst it has drawn criticism for performing less well than ePTFE membranes, both can be overcome and is a necessary step to make for all of our futures!
I for one really appreciate the confidence in the protection that Gore-Tex gives me when out skiing, even in the windiest, coldest and wettest of days.
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