Love, love, LOVE Icebreaker

By KBW Ranked #23 - Women's Long Underwear October 23, 2008

I travel. I travel a LOT. Bought my first Icebreaker Nature Ultralite sweetheart top in Australia at a merino specialty store. I bought it because Spring in Australia is often really quite chilly, and right after that I was going to be in the UK just in time for winter to set in. Ever been in the UK during winter? Impossible to dress for -- everywhere indoors, including public transportation like buses and the Tube, is heated to strip-off-your-clothes temperature, and outside it is really cold.

This top answers that need perfectly. When it's really over-heated, you don't feel too hot and the soft, truly non-itchy merino really does wick off the glow without getting stinky. When it's cold, it offers a thin layer underneath a heavy jacket or coat that keeps you warm all out of proportion to the tissue-thin thickness of the thing. If it's really cold out, I can layer it over a camisole (also Icebreaker merino) and be toasty warm with just a shell or a vest without feeling like I'm smothered in clothing. If it's really really cold, I put another top over this layer, and stay happy as a cricket on the hearth.

The neck isn't that low-cut, so I don't feel over-exposed, often important when you're traveling in places you're not familiar with -- I didn't even feel self-conscious in Singapore. The lighter colors are a bit see-through, so I only wear pinks or nude colors underneath those. (It's not a sweetheart neck, just a medium high v-neck.)

Best of all for the high mileage traveler, you really can go without washing Icebreaker pieces for weeks. I dribbled some soy sauce on a pale blue sweetheart top, normally the kiss of death for a shirt. Worse, I didn't notice it for a while, and it dried. Ouch. A bit of water and some dabbing with a paper towel, and it looked like new. Holy cow, I thought, I gotta buy more of these. And they simply refuse to get stinky, even if you do.

I bought Red Island (sort of the Aus version of Icebreaker) at the same time I bought Icebreaker. While I like their merino tops and do wear them, it's the Icebreaker Ultralite I keep reaching for.

Expensive and pricey, on your first cash outlay, yes. But frankly, since I've bought the Icebreaker items, I'd say I wear them most days, and am planning tonight on paring down my luggage and keeping it mainly to merino wool, so I think my cost-to-wear ratio is going to be pretty good. New strategy: keep an eye on the outlet and when there's a sale on, and buy-buy-buy. Then have my friend in the States send it to me wherever the heck I am on the planet.

I may make it back home in a year or so. Icebreaker will keep me from breaking my back hauling my luggage all over the globe, I'll look stylish and hip, feel like I'm wearing lux goods, and laundry will be far off in the future. What more could you ask from your clothes?

View Details: Icebreaker Nature Sweetheart Top - Long-Sleeve - Women's

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