Because Reflexcell is so different from any other material, many of the usual rules just dont apply, so to get the most out of our products, please read these instructions carefully.

When Reflexcell products are packed in our factory, they are neatly folded and all air removed to give an exceptionally small package. Occasionally a small puncture in the outer packaging may occur, making the pack feel softer, and have a slightly more rounded appearance. This in no way affects the performance of the products, and should not be viewed as a problem.

If you are lying on the ground, providing extra insulation between the Reflexcell material and the ground will make you much warmer, for example a sleeping mat, a rucksack, or a pile of vegetation.

• Open the package by tearing at the red pre-cut slit at its base.
• Unroll the product to its full length. Stretch the product sideways, ensuring that all cells are fully stretched, both all the way around, and along the full length.
• After being stretched, the material may stay flat at first, but over a couple of minutes, the cells will fill with air. When stretching the material in the Blizzard Survival Jacket, treat the ends of the arm holes carefully, since they are the weakest part of the garment. Now get into the product carefully.

• Reflexcell works best if all cells are full of air and none is squashed or flattened. To create cells of the perfect shape, tug the material lengthwise, then look to check that the material has gained a corrugated appearance.
• If the cells get flattened again during use, re-form them again by tugging. To avoid flattening the cells, try not to stretch the garment tightly in a sideways direction, for example, pulling the front tightly around you, so that the back becomes flattened.

• Tug the garment lengthwise to re-form the pleats, then roll it up tightly (to avoid trapping air, start rolling at the foot in the case of a sleeping bag, start at the head in the case of the vest). Secure with a strap or string (or using the Blizzard Pouch, if available).
• When you get home, unpack the product, turn it inside out and leave in a warm place to dry for a few days before re-packing for future use.
• At home, you can use a vacuum cleaner to get your Blizzard Survival Bag back almost to its original packed size.
• Tug the bag lengthwise to make the pleats as neat as possible. Next, put a tea towel over the end of the hose of your vacuum cleaner. Insert this into the top of the bag, closing the bag around the pipe with your hands. Soon all the air will be removed, and if the bag is carefully rolled or folded from the foot end (easier with two people), it can be made extremely small.
• Alternatively, Blizzard offers a re-packing service for a small charge.

Reflexcell, the base material for Blizzards unique products, has major advantages over existing materials and is revolutionising emergency thermal protection. Reflexcell took fifteen years to develop and is completely different from other reflective blanket materials.

Reflexcell has a cellular construction to trap warm air, elastication which draws the material to the body, reducing cold spaces and heat loss by convection, and finally, silvered surfaces to block heat loss by radiation. It is also completely waterproof and windproof.

This unique combination gives Reflexcell vastly superior warmth to any comparable emergency product. However its greatest strength is that it can be compressed into the tiniest of packages and stored indefinitely without damaging its performance.

Not surprisingly, the thermal resistance of Reflexcell changes as it is stretched. However the graph shows that even when stretched pretty tight, it will still be extremely warm.

•  The cells in the material trap warm, still air, providing insulation.
•  The silver reflective surfaces block radiated heat.
•  The elastic causes the material to hug the body, stopping drafts, reducing convection, and keeping the material right next to you where it is needed.
•  The outer layer is completely waterproof and windproof.
•  Unlike most other insulating materials, ours works just as well when wet.

That depends on many factors:

•  The individuals ability to tolerate cold.
•  The amount of other clothing worn.
•  Wind-chill.
•  Duration of exposure.
•  Insulation from the ground.

As a rough guide, if you are wearing the type of clothes appropriate for the season and you make some effort to find a sheltered spot and put some insulation underneath you, then in spring, summer and autumn you should be warm and comfortable. In winter you may not be so comfortable, but you should be able to survive for several days in all but the most extreme conditions.  

Surprisingly strong. Single layer reflective blankets are very fragile because they are easily punctured, and once a tear has started to develop, it rips right across the material. This doesnt happen to Reflexcell material because:

• The three layers reinforce each other, and even if one is damaged, the others usually remain intact.
• The seams in the material act like the thick threads in ripstop nylon, stopping tears from developing.
• Materials only tear when they are pulled tight. The elastic in the Reflexcell material helps to keep the material in a relaxed state if it doesnt get pulled tight, it doesnt tear.

Of course the material can be damaged (it should be kept away from sharp objects) but even if this happens, it will continue to keep you warm.

Technically the answer is no. Physicists tell us that whereas radiated heat can be reflected, cold cannot. It is true that if the surface of your body is cold, it will emit very little radiated heat, so that reflecting this back to you will only make a very small difference to getting you warmer. But it is scientifically impossible for a material to reflect cold back to you and make you colder.

Fortunately, unlike other reflective products, most of Reflexcells warming ability comes from trapped air insulation, so even when there is very little effect from the reflectiveness of the material, this insulation will help you to get warm much faster than other reflective products.

If you compare Reflexcell products with single skin products, for example with polythene survival bags, or with space blankets, they might not look cheap. But they are actually a completely different type of product equivalent to a traditional bivvi bag and a conventional insulating sleeping bag in one package. Polythene survival bags may protect you from the worst of the weather, but you will usually be cold, damp and uncomfortable. In cold conditions they will not stop you becoming hypothermic.

People who have used single layer reflective blankets in any but the most gentle conditions report disastrous results blankets disintegrating when unpacked, ripping in the wind, and not even offering the illusion of warmth. Compare this with a product which will give you a comfortable night, even in cold conditions, which in a real emergency will keep you alive for a week, which will provide instant warmth and shelter and protect against hypothermia even if you are wet through. 

Not normally. This is because the warmth of the material suppresses the formation of condensation, and the perforations in the inner and middle layers allow much of the moisture to move away from the body. However under certain conditions small amounts of moisture can form. No one who has used Reflexcell products has felt that these caused any problem, or affected the performance of the material.

Samples of Reflexcell material have been tested in the laboratory to measure their thermal resistance (insulating ability). Blizzard has conducted in-house tests, and independent tests have been conducted by Leeds University. Performance is measured in Togs, a unit of thermal resistance commonly used in the textile industry.

(1 Tog = 0.1 m2K/W i.e. one Tog is a tenth of a square metre degree Celsius per Watt).
 

Reflexcell Survival Bags were tested in-house under laboratory conditions using a dummy filled with hot water. In keeping with standard practice, thermal efficiency was measured with the bags resting on an insulating mat. The heat-retaining capability, and warmth to weight ratio of a Reflexcell sleeping bag were arbitrarily set as one. The results are shown in tabular and graphical form.

It can be seen that the Reflexcell Survival Bag is genuinely in a league of its own. No other product is able to deliver the same thermal performance at such a low weight.

The high figures for reflective foil blankets are misleading for several reasons:

• Using two such blankets will only slightly improve their performance.
• The high warmth to weight ratio of these blankets is due to their extremely low weight, not to exceptional thermal performance.
• Single layer blankets are generally inconvenient to use and extremely fragile, meaning that these theoretical figures are rarely realized in emergency situations.

It is established practice to express the thermal efficiency of sleeping bag materials as a warmth-to-weight ratio by dividing the insulating value of the material (in Togs), by the weight of a typical sleeping bag made from the material (in kilograms). The table shows typical values for synthetic and down sleeping bags (as ascertained by Leeds University), and for a Reflexcell sleeping bag.

Using a tog rating of 8 Togs and a weight of 330 grams for the Reflexcell bag gives a value of 24 Togs/kg. This is well over twice the value for goose down, which was previously regarded as having the highest possible warmth-to-weight ratio among usable insulating materials. It is worth noting that the warmth-to-weight ratio of goose down is drastically reduced by the presence of moisture, whereas that of Reflexcell is hardly affected.