How can a jacket’s material be both waterproof and breathable?

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I know that wearing a plastic bag over your hand will make it 100% waterproof, but it will also block air, so it won’t be breathable, and thus your hand will feel like its choking, and it will get moist and hot easily. Aren’t waterproofness and breathability inversly related? i.e. you can’t have one without the other? (I know an exception can be a raincoat, but that’s only breathable by its shape, and also its shape only protects you from getting wet from the rain, usually from above. But you won’t be 100% waterproof if someone hosed you with water)

There are lots of jacket companies out there claiming they can do both.

How can you have both? How can you have your cake and eat it too at the same time?

In: Engineering

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The breathable part comes from things like flaps on back that let air out but not water (coming from above in), vent holes in arm pits where, again, falling precipitation won’t enter.

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