Skip to main content

Waterproof Your Wardrobe with Otter Wax

As a resident of one the rainiest parts of the country, I have something of a love-hate relationship with natural fibers. I love the way they look and feel, but hate the way they handle in a torrential downpour. I also have a similar relationship with GoreTex. It’s a miracle of modern textile engineering and I love how it handles rain, but the coats made with it just never look as good as those made with natural fibers.

It took me a while, but after a bit of searching I found a solution to this problem: an all-natural fabric dressing called Otter Wax.

Recommended Videos

Creator Chris Chase made the first batch of the stuff about two years ago. He was working on a pair of espadrilles that he had just brought back from Argentina, and he wanted to make them repel water like his old Filson tincloth coat. “Tincloth is oiled in the factory for water repellency, and I just thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool to do that with these shoes? I also didn’t want anything petroleum-based because I didn’t like the oily finish it produced, or the smell that it left on the fabric, so I started looking for other ways to do it and eventually came up with the beeswax blend I still use today.”

“I was actually looking at my Amazon account a couple days ago, looking at my  order history from back when I got started. Back then I was ordering like four or five ounces of beeswax at a time, and cooking it in a pyrex bowl on my stove. I was making just enough to use on my projects, and then one day I had a friend over. I showed her the shoes, but she was much more interested in the wax I used to waterproof them. She convinced me I was onto something, so I did a little bit of research and found out that she was right – nobody was really making any kind of all-natural fabric dressing like the stuff I was using. So the next day I drilled a hole in the bottom of a crock pot and started making bigger batches.”

What’s funny is that Chase’s methods haven’t changed all that much since he got started. The equipment he uses is much bigger now, but the wax itself is still as simple as it ever was. It’s nothing more than a blend of beeswax, plant waxes, and lanolin; you won’t find any paraffin, silicone, or anything else synthetic in the bar. It’s also extremely easy to apply to your garments. You literally just rub the bar on the fabric in question and the friction you create when applying it is usually enough to soften the wax and allow it to spread evenly into the fabric. There’s nothing more to it – no irons, no blowdryers, no additional work of any kind. Chase does recommend that you let your newly-waxed items cure for at least 24 hours, though, just to let the wax settle in. It works great on canvas, tincloth, wool, denim, and nylon shells; and a bar only costs about 13-18 bucks depending on what size you get.

Place an order or find a local retailer on Otterwax’s website.

Drew Prindle
Drew is our resident tech nerd. He’s spent most of his life trying to be James Bond, so naturally he’s developed an…
Tony Soprano vs. Walter White: Who is the ultimate antihero?
TV's biggest heavyweights duke it out for the antihero crown
Breaking bad season 4 screen shot

Sports fans often debate between two heavyweight legends. For basketball, it's LeBron James and Michael Jordan. Switching to tennis, you have Roger Federer fans and Rafael Nadal diehards. Debates like these are ingrained in the culture of athletics, but TV fans have their own version of this sparring match.

Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and Walter White from Breaking Bad are the two characters who still send shockwaves through every drama in the 21st century. These men were the perfect mix of good and evil. They navigated family life and the criminal underworld with cunning intelligence and ruthless risk-taking. Every show with morally gray characters at the center owes its storyboard to Walter and Tony, but which character deserves the antihero crown? This is Tony Soprano vs. Walter White for all the marbles.
Who was the more complex character?

Read more
Learn how to smoke a pipe the proper way with our guide for beginners
Let us show you the classy way to smoke a pipe
Packing a pipe

Pipe smoking is the most aesthetically distinguished way to enjoy tobacco, but you lose the classy effect if you don’t know how to smoke a pipe properly. Smoking a pipe has become a lost art, and these days, most people who engage in pipe smoking do so to achieve a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps your grandfather enjoyed a puff now and again paired with a good stiff whiskey, or maybe your goal is to emulate a pipe-smoking artist.

I know that I enjoy a good puff on a pipe now and then, and knowing the right way to enjoy a pipe has made the experience much more pleasurable for for me. Whatever the case, if you intend to take up the time-honored tradition of unwinding with a pipe like me, you should learn how to smoke a pipe the right way. And smoking a pipe is very different than smoking a cigar (except you shouldn't be inhaling either).

Read more
Don’t ruin your cigars: here’s how to properly season a new humidor
Seasoning secrets every cigar lover could use
faceless man presenting a cigar humidor with cigars inside with gloved hands

If you're a newcomer to the world of cigars or just bought a brand-new humidor, you'll need to season it. And no, I'm not saying to add salt and pepper to it. If you've never heard of it, you might ask, "What is seasoning for a humidor?"

Don't think you need to flavor the box or anything — seasoning is really about getting the wood inside your humidor so as not to rob your cigars of precious moisture. Easy to understand, and getting it done is relatively straightforward as well. The trick is figuring out the "why," and we'll get into that in a bit. But let's first discuss seasoning a humidor.

Read more