Product Review - Zip-Off Gloves
Ski and snowboard gloves and mittens with back-of-the-hand zippers make life on the slopes easier.
Zip-off ski and snowboard gloves, a new product, can eliminate the hassle of removing gloves to cool the hands or do those hand chores that create on-slope hassles.
"New Vaughn Outdoor CZiP™ Gloves & Mittens Unzip Across Knuckles, Stay Securely Attached to Provide Winter Athletes Convenient Access," the press release announced.
Zip-off ski gloves?
The idea demanded testing. I immediately requested a demo pair. They arrived, however, too late. Wait til next year, I thought.
Wrong.
When the opportunity came to ski this summer in New Zealand, I tossed those zip-off gloves in my bag. After all, if they worked down under (where everything is upside down, right?), well, they'd probably work anywhere.
What are zip-off ski gloves?
Stated the press release: The innovative CZiP design features a zipper at the top of the hand portion (just below the knuckles) of a glove or mitten and allows the wearer to remove the material covering the hand and fingers without completely removing the glove or mitten. With hands free, the wearer can perform any function, while still having the convenience of the open portion secured around the wrist.
Eric Vaughn, an avid snowboarder and president of Vaughn Outdoor, coined the idea for CZiP after experiencing the inconvenience of removing his gloves to let his hands cool down every time he got on the ski lift. "This was a waste of time, inconvenient and I risked dropping a glove from the lift every time I removed one. On one trip up the lift, I looked down at my glove and thought how this problem could be solved if there was an opening on the glove that would allow access to my hands without taking the glove all the way off.
Fair enough. Mr. Vaughn had identified a problem and, he claimed, come up with a solution.
But, did they work?
On New Zealand Day One, I didn't try. I'd come 9,000-plus miles, was jet-lagged to the nth degree, and was about to ski in mid-summer. I decided I didn't want to deal with any more variables on the ski hill than normally necessary (cold, elevation, wind, snow conditions, boot fit, etc.)
On Days Two through Five, however, it was a different story. I donned the gloves.
So, did it work?
In a word. Yes.
The gloves were warm, sufficiently waterproof and perfectly functional. The zippers, which cut a swath over the backs of the hands, have large pull tabs attached, which means that opening one with the other gloved hand is actually easy (no teeth-pulling required). Once opened, they hang down and your fingers are free to do all those odd tasks you need done-like open your ornery jacket zippers, handle your camera or fetch a tissue from a pocket.
Were they warm?
Warm enough. Admittedly, even though it was mid/late-winter in New Zealand, we hit a stretch of perfectly fabulous weather, with the temperatures rising to the high forties, so no sub-zero testing took place. But, even on those first runs of the day, when a healthy chill was still in the air, the gloves performed well.
I found only two problems:
1) the dangling fingers tended to drop in front my pocket camera's lens, unnoticed by me, and many photos have gray finger-shadows in the foreground; must keep an eye out for that next time;
and 2) it was hard to adjust to un-zipping instead of removing the gloves; I kept forgetting that I didn't need to remove them.
All-on-all this seems an excellent product that addresses an admittedly niche need. But, on the other hand, they will come in handy anywhere that warm, waterproof gloves are required - snow shoveling, sledding, snowball fighting, digging cars out of snowbanks, etc.
CZiP gloves are available in men's and women's, sizes from small through extra-large. Colors offered are steel gray, quarry (light gray), thunder (dark blue) and black. The CZiP sports a YKK®, fleece-lined zipper and is insulated with warm, non-bulky Primaloft®. Over and under designs are available in both gloves and mittens. Prices range from $59.99 to $159.99 MSRP.
More info: visit Vaughn Outdoor.
