Vegan Winter Outerwear

[Porterbee]

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to this.. I've been able to eat "vegan" and find suitable personal care (face creams etc) replacements, since july but am having a hard time with the winter outerwear. I live in northwestern BC and it get's pretty cold, this year especially. We had -30 for a good two weeks and it certainly hasn't warmed up to anything considered balmy (-20's) :)

Any suggestions for a good replacement for a down winter jacket? I'd love to replace it but I haven't seen anything close (though I don't really know where to look) to keeping me warm at minus thirty. A fleece isn't going to cut it as I don't keep warm on a good day. I'm the one that's always cold..

Another thing, I work in the bush doing forestry work. This can mean 10 hours in the pouring rain at the end of October, which I must say is totally unpleasant. Any suggestions as a replacement for wool. I generally wear a Stanfield wool sweater.... anything else that keeps you warm while wet??? I want to make this work!

Thanks for any suggestions/help and happy new year!

[Cinnamon toast]

Check out Mountain Equipment Co op. They have lots of great synthetics as an alternative to down. I got a great parka from them last year and it keeps me toasty at -30!

[LuckyDuck]

My boyfriend got a synthetic/vegan parka from them... we live in Montreal: windy, freezing rain, heaps of snow, weather forecasts that say ridiculous things like, "This morning, heavy rain and 0 degrees. Around midday winds will increase to 20, temperature will drop to -15 but it will feel closer to -35 so bundle up! Then overnight everything will freeze, and we'll get about 10 cm of snow so be careful because you never know where there will be ice under all that snow!" ... or something to that effect... I'm paraphrasing.

To make matters worse, he works at a dog kennel where he has to walk the dogs at least twice a day so they can do their business... so he spends most of the day outside!

So you have an idea, now, of how much it means that when he comes home he complains about cold, achy feet, numb fingers and bottom, and joints that feel like they have ice chips in them, but everything covered by the parka and hood is toasty and warm :) Certainly made his life nicer! And he even gets rained on in it, and the outer part of the jacket gets soaked but it's so thick overall that he doesn't feel even a little damp on the inside.

[Porterbee]

Great! Thanks for the fast replies :)

[Cinnamon toast]

And, you should be able to find some micro fiber long johns either at MEC or at any good department store. Stay away from cotton inner layers if you're going to be really active and sweaty.