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- Verified Buyer
I bought these mitts for the water-resistant shell to pack for emergency use over my gloves but have been impressed with the whole product. The photos show both the shell and liners and just the shells folded under an approx. 1lb weight.The liner mitts were heavy weight poly - at least 200 weight. The finger and thumb openings were terrific as when back country skiing or snow showing it seems that every few hundred yards I need to get the shells off to get a drink, adjust equipment, help someone, take a photo, etc. With this set up it was easily enabled and my normally cold hands did not get cooled off as just the fingertips were exposed. With an additional thin touch screen enabled football grip like liner, it would be even more protective. Some reviewers complained about the small magnets which are to hold the mitt finger and thumb cover back. To me they were both invisible and non-functional. You can see the left-hand magnet in the photo but if not they are about the size of a dime and feel thinner than that. I could never feel them when wearing the liners. They also don't work in that they are far from strong enough to actually hold back either the thumb or finger cover. While this would likely be a benefit, it did not compromise the advantage of being able to get your finger and thumb tips out of the liner. The only complaint is that the cuffs have two nasty strips of Velcro (see the photo) to connect with mating Velcro inside the shell to help retain the liner to get your hand out of the whole works w/o pulling the liner out. The Velcro is not necessary and catches on things including your nose should you accidentally wipe it with the liner - I may remove it in the future.While I haven't yet dunked the shell into a bucket of water, it appears waterproof and provides excellent wind protection. There is, in fact, a thin permanent liner in the shell but it still feels very shell-like. This thin liner does limit the compressibility for packing as seen in the compression photo. The 1lb weight compresses the two shells folded in half down to about 2" thick. They can be readily compressed to 1" thick between your hands and probably down to 1/2" if they were stuffed hard into a pack. Per the comments from a few other reviewers, I have not observed any bunching or significant movement of this thin permanent liner and it stays put when taking the removable liners in and out.The whole package makes the warmest hand covering I have owned. With my normally cold hands, I snowshoed all day in the high teens and 20s with high winds and did not have cold fingers - including as noted with frequent fingers-out activities. Normally, I would have needed hand warmers for this. On another day, they worked for a 30 min walk at zero w/o hand warmers. I have a heavy set of Gortex gloves with heavy liners and they would have been cold in less than 15 min.I typically wear a medium glove and these were just right in that they were a generous, but not sloppy, medium which is what I want for a cold weather mitt. I suspect that I could have worn a small but then the extra air insulation inside would have been gone. There is room for an additional thin (but not medium) poly liner into this mitt.It's a great mitten. Very nice quality with all the features one could want. However, in practice, I don't care for the inner\outer mitten system the way I thought I would. If you like taking photos while hiking in the winter, this review might help you.I have other mittens that came with a standard glove liner, which makes it very nice for photography. Just throw your mitten off and you still have some protection from the extreme cold while having good dexterity for holding a camera and taking photos. I thought this would be even a better set up, having folding mitten liners instead of standard glove liners. But in practice, it just doesn't work as smoothly. These liners are held in place with velcro, which is fine, until you want to remove the outer shell quickly. You can't do it quickly.Worn by themselves, I do like this folding mitten liner from O.R. better than other folding mitten\gloves that I have. The biggest difference is that these have no fingers underneath the folding mitten. They are basically a mitten cut in half, which I prefer to a glove that is cut in half. It's less restrictive and warmer. These also overlap further than others I have, especially on the thumb. Great job O.R.So the outer mitten shells are great. The inner mitten liners are great. But together, as a system, it doesn't work like I had hoped. These are not really designed to be able to quickly remove the liners and have instant use of the fingers. This may or may not matter to you, depending on your needs, but for me, any mitten that uses a liner as part of the system, ought to be quickly removable in order to have quick use of the fingers.Other than this, the only other con I have with these is with the magnet, which I thought I would like. It feels like a coin bouncing around on top of my fingers. I don't like it. I have other fold-back mittens with magnets, but you can't feel the magnet from inside like you can with these. I would prefer velcro over this design, or more material between the magnet and the fingers.For super cold weather, when I know I will need quick use of my fingers for photography, etc., I will probably end up wearing standard glove liners in these, and use these inner folding mitten liners by themselves in fall weather. By themselves, they will make excellent photography mittens.As far as warmth goes, I just tested these up against my Dakine Scout mittens which were close to the same price. The temperature was 12 degree F. Wind chill factor was -7 degrees F. To avoid any inaccuracies due to the possibility of one hand having better circulation, or due to any slight changes in wind\temperature from wearing one brand to the next, I wore each brand at the same time, on different hands of course, and then swapped hands after there was a clear winner. Same results for both hands. After about an hour of doing nothing more than guiding a snowblower, these were much warmer than the Dakines. My hands did not get cold at all with these, but they were getting very cold with the Dakines. Based on this test, I would say the rating on the package is accurate, which rates them down to zero degrees F.This is the second pair of these mittens I have ordered. I ordered a medium the first time around and they were a bit too big for me so my teenage son was happy to keep them for himself. The small fit me much better - they are unisex sizes so I would think most women would fit into a size small.PROS: There are two parts - the shell and the fleece liner. They can be worn together or separately. The liners are removable so I do not understand the reviewer who wrote that they got too bunched up. There is velcro involved to avoid any bunching from happening. I did not have an issues with the magnets inside the liner like another reviewer mentioned. These have kept my hands extremely warn on the coldest days. I love the gaiters and the wrist cords so I will never have to worry about dropping a mitten off a lift. It is great to have mittens with a removable liner for several functional reasons and warmth but also because it makes it easier to wash them when necessary - they dry much faster. The gaiters are big and adjustable to you can keep the warmth in. They even fit over my son's cast that the has for a broken arm. Also, I think they are a great price for the quality.CONS: Just one and it is tiny......The mittens are described as having hand warming pockets. They DO have them but I had to really search. I actually did not believe I would ever find it. But I looked on the company website and read some answers there and FOUND IT. To find the pocket, remove the liner. flip back the top of the liner, you will find the opening to the pocket on the back of the index finger area. Amazing! A credit card can just barely fit in that space. I have not tried it with a hand warmer yet.OVERALL: Buy these. You will be happy and warm. : )Bought for Antarctica so not used but certainly cosy
