A few months ago I asked Buff if they were interested in letting me review one of their items. They not only said, “Sure!” but in fact sent me three different types of Buffs!
They sent me a UV Buff, a Polar Buff, and one of their newest Buffs, a Wool Buff.
Let me back up a little, what is a Buff? It’s essentially a tube of stretchy fabric. Most of the Buffs* are seamless which makes it possible, and comfortable, to wear the Buff in a variety of ways. The most common outdoor adventurer uses for the Buff is to wear it as a neck gaitor or as a beanie hat.
Since receiving the Buffs, I’ve been putting them to the test and the short story is that they’ve passed with flying colors. The Buff I’ve used the most is the UV protection one, mainly because I live in Southern California and climb outdoors a lot. I wore it as a beanie, a neck gaitor, a balaclava, as a headband and as a wrist band. I’ve also tried it in a skull cap configuration under my climbing helmet and it felt quite comfortable. It was quite functional in the ways I tried using it and I’m happy to report that it was easier than I thought to make these different configurations.
At first I was worried that wearing it as a beanie (where you double or sometimes triple up the fabric) might feel too tight on my head but I’m happy to say I did not get a headache even once during my testing (and that goes for all three of the styles they gave me). My husband also borrowed the UV Buff to wear “Saharan style” to protect his head and the back of his neck (he usually wears a t-shirt on his head for this purpose). While he said he felt a little silly at first I pointed out that the t-shirt was worse. Besides, in the backcountry would you rather have more style or a non sunburned neck?
I was sent the Polar Buff to use while snowshoeing, as I had mentioned to them, I was going to try snowshoeing for the first time ever this season. So I finally went on the last weekend in January. I used the Polar Buff as a beanie and then as a neck gaitor which prompted a friend to say, “I wish I could wear my hat around my neck”. The Polartec® fleece was nice, soft and warm, while I didn’t feel I could use this version very well as a headband or wrist band (since it’s thicker than the regular and UV buffs) I did find it worked well for other uses.
As for the wool beanie, it’s longer than the others, I’m not sure why, but the extra length makes it scrunch up nicely. The one I had received was a black wool one and I wore it along with a black wool crew neck long sleeve shirt to a December party at the harbor. This combination made it look like I was wearing a cowl neck wool shirt, attractive and practical for the evening 🙂 I also used it as a beanie when it got really late and I zipped up my jacket.
By the way, the UV Buff has not seemed to stretch out too much, despite my husband using it as well as I, and despite it being machine washed. I have not washed the other Buffs yet.
All in all, I’m very pleased with my Buff products. I look forward to using them on many more adventures!
Click the picture below for my affiliate link** to REI for this UV Buff (other colors and styles available):
Video of a woman demonstrating how to make the different Buff configurations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHgS2mxHBG4
Link to Buffs on Amazon
*The Polar Buff has a seam where the regular polyester Buff fabric is joined with Polartec® fleece.
** Affiliate links earn me a small percentage of a sale if you buy the product.