Ski and snowboard gear goes into storage in April smelling faintly of a long season and comes out in November smelling considerably worse. The problem is that almost nobody washes it, partly out of habit and partly out of a reasonable fear of wrecking an expensive shell. That fear is misplaced. Technical outerwear needs washing more than ordinary clothing does, and leaving it dirty is what actually destroys it.
Why dirty gear performs worse
This is the part that changes people’s minds, so it goes first.
A waterproof breathable shell works by letting water vapour escape from the inside while blocking liquid water from the outside. Body oil, sweat salt, sunscreen, and grime clog the membrane and the fabric around it, and a clogged membrane stops breathing.
When the shell stops breathing, sweat condenses inside it. You get wet from the inside and conclude the jacket has failed and is leaking.
The outer face also carries a durable water repellent finish, which makes water bead and roll off. Dirt masks that finish. A dirty face fabric wets out, water soaks into the outer layer, and the jacket goes cold and heavy even though the membrane underneath is intact.
So the jacket that seems to have stopped working usually just needs washing. Washing restores breathability and, with the right product, restores the beading too.
Washing a shell properly
Close every zip, including pit zips and pockets, and fasten every velcro tab. Loose velcro abrades the face fabric and catches the mesh lining.
Loosen the hem and hood drawcords.
Use a technical wash rather than ordinary detergent. This matters more than it sounds. Standard detergents contain surfactants and optical brighteners that stay in the fabric and actively attract water, which is the opposite of what you want on a shell.
Never use fabric softener. It coats the fabric and kills the repellent finish outright.
Wash warm on a gentle cycle, alone or with one other shell.
Run two extra rinses. Residue is the enemy here and one rinse does not clear it.
Reviving the water repellency
After washing, the finish is usually still there and just needs waking up.
Tumble dry on low for twenty minutes. Gentle heat realigns the repellent molecules on the fibre surface and beading often comes straight back.
Check the manufacturer’s guidance first, since a few garments say no heat at all, in which case a warm iron on low with a pressing cloth does the same job.
If water still soaks in rather than beading, the finish has worn off and needs replacing. Wash-in treatments go through the machine and coat everything including the inside; spray-on treatments coat only the outer face and leave the membrane free to breathe, which makes them the better choice on most shells.
Apply a spray treatment to a clean damp garment, then heat set it in a low dryer.
Insulated jackets and down
Down needs a different approach and the fear here is more justified.
Use a down specific wash, since ordinary detergent strips the natural oils that let each cluster loft.
Wash warm on gentle, and run three rinses rather than two, because detergent trapped in wet down is extremely hard to remove.
Never wring or twist a wet down garment. Wet down clumps and the baffles tear if you handle it roughly. Press the water out instead.
Dry on low heat with three or four clean tennis balls or dryer balls, and expect it to take several hours. This is the step people cut short, and down that goes into storage even slightly damp goes mouldy and flat.
Pull it out every thirty minutes and break up clumps by hand. It will look ruined in the middle of the process and come back fully lofted at the end.
Synthetic insulation is much more forgiving and tolerates ordinary gentle washing and low tumble drying.
Base layers, which are the smelliest part
The stink lives here rather than in the shell.
Synthetic base layers hold body oil in the fibre, and bacteria feeding on that oil is what produces the smell that survives washing.
Wash them promptly rather than letting them sit damp in a bag, which is where the real colonisation happens.
Use a small dose of detergent, since excess detergent leaves residue that holds oil and makes the next wear smell faster.
For anything already persistently smelly, soak in warm water with half a cup of washing soda for an hour before washing, then add an extra rinse.
Merino wool base layers need a wool wash and cool water, and they should never see an enzyme detergent, which digests protein fibre.
Gloves, socks, and everything else
Gloves are the item most often ruined by good intentions. Leather palmed gloves should be cleaned by hand with a damp cloth and treated with a leather conditioner, never machine washed. Fully synthetic gloves can go in a mesh bag on gentle and must be air dried away from heat.
Ski socks are usually a wool blend and need a wool wash, cool water, and air drying. Hot drying is what kills the elastic that holds them up.
Neck gaiters and balaclavas carry a season of breath moisture and should be washed as often as base layers.
Helmet liners are usually removable and almost never removed. Take the liner out and wash it by hand.
Goggles do not go in water. Never wipe the inside lens, which carries an anti-fog coating that comes straight off, and let them air dry face down.
Putting it away for the summer
Everything gets washed before storage, without exception. Salt, oil, and grime left in fabric for seven months degrade the coatings and attract insects.
Everything must be completely dry. Bone dry, not nearly dry.
Hang shells and insulated pieces rather than compressing them. Down stored compressed loses loft permanently, and a stuff sack is for travel rather than for storage.
Store somewhere with stable temperature and no direct light. A closet inside the house rather than a garage or an attic.
Leave zips open and pockets empty so air can move through.
The Denver part
Two local conditions matter and they pull in opposite directions.
The dry air here is a real advantage for the drying steps, which is exactly where this process usually goes wrong. Base layers, gloves, and shells that would take days to dry properly in a humid climate dry thoroughly here, which makes the end of season storage rule much easier to follow. Down is the exception and still needs hours of low tumble drying rather than air drying, because air alone will not restore loft.
Altitude sun is the warning. Ultraviolet intensity increases with elevation, and gear worn at ski area elevations takes considerably more of it than the same gear would at sea level. That degrades face fabrics, fades colour, and breaks down repellent finishes faster. It also means never drying technical outerwear in direct sun, which undoes on a washing line the finish you just paid to restore.
The third factor is the sheer length of the season here. Gear gets used from November into April rather than for two weeks a year, which means a single end of season wash is not enough. A mid season wash somewhere around the turn of the year keeps a shell breathing through the second half of the season, and it is the change that most people notice immediately.
Where technical gear gets enough water
Technical washes only work when they rinse out completely, and shells and insulated pieces need room to move and a lot of water volume to clear residue from a membrane.
The machines at our self-service laundry run full cycles with real water volume and give a bulky jacket room to tumble, which is what clears detergent out of a membrane rather than leaving it in there to attract water.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Nou wash-dry-fold service covers the everyday laundry.
For general fabric guidance, The American Cleaning Institute publishes a fabric care guide that is a useful cross-check.
The short version
A shell that seems to have stopped working is usually just dirty, because body oil and grime clog the membrane and stop it breathing, so you get wet from the inside and blame a leak. Wash it with a technical wash rather than detergent, never with fabric softener, with two extra rinses, then tumble low for twenty minutes to bring the beading back. Down needs a down specific wash, three rinses, and hours of low tumble drying with dryer balls. Base layers hold the smell, so wash them promptly with a small dose. Everything goes into summer storage clean, bone dry, and hanging rather than compressed.
Gear can be dropped at WaveMAX Denver, and our contact page reaches the store if you want to talk a jacket through before you wash it.