Score!

Well, I received this mere moments before I began some yard work in the blazing noontime sunshine so I got to begin testing it about 30 seconds after it hit my stoop.  In a nutshell, this device performs it’s stated mission quite adequately.

The cape is designed to secure to the wind cords where they are exposed on the outside of the hat band as shown in the photo.  There is internal elastic between the Velcro attachments that pulls the cape up to the rear of the hat’s crown.  The cape portion drapes over the shoulders and definitely protects the neck, especially while looking down at the weeds that need removing.  It’s particularly noticeable on a day like yesterday as the nylon fabric serves to keep my exposed skin shaded and lowers my overall temp noticeably.  

Not sure exactly when this product was sold by Tilley, but there is a subtle Tilley hat logo on the cape that makes me think that this was offered around the same time as the little leather tag logos began to appear on the band of Tilley hats, circa 20-teens.  There are no other clues for dating purposes anywhere on the product or the packaging, which does display both English and French descriptions.  It is described as “Made in Canada” on the packaging and is 100% nylon with a UPF of 50+.

Two observations:

First, the design is somewhat problematic as the attachment points are the exposed wind cords and, because of the elastic, there is more than a little pressure on those cords, thus pulling them out of the hat.  I suspect that this aspect would be more problematic the larger one’s head is.  Likely some users who simply tuck their wind cords into their hats or inside the crown pocket may find this troublesome.

Second, the elastic on the cape is probably a bit too “strong”, especially for larger hat sizes.  The result is a bit of a tighter hat band feel and, depending on the hat model, this may result in the cape sliding up the crown from the brim toward to top.  I would imagine that this would be more problematic for use on a nylon or nylamtium hat as the material as slicker.

For my test, I selected my fav gardening hat, a LTM8, which served to minimize both of these potential problems.  The mesh crown of the LTM8 was rough enough to prevent the cape from inching up the back of the crown as I worked, bending and turning.  Additionally, that my wind cord grommets on this hat are fairly corroded by regular salty dousing also served to resist the elastic of the cape and keep my cords from pulling out of the hat.  The fact that I routinely utilize the rear wind cord around the back of my head also probably minimized this problem for me.

All in all, this is a worthwhile product especially for low wind situations where one is dealing with an intense Sun up high in clear skies.  Not sure how well this would work in windy conditions and I did not try to form the cape around the front of my neck as it was too warm and I forgot to try that.  

(Now let’s see if any of my photos are small enough to post here). (2 out of 4 ain’t bad. lol)

It’s a tab with Velcro that is designed to loop through the wind cord and reconnect with the cape.