The Review Smiths - Issue 36

Review Smiths

Hi,

Welcome to the July edition of The Review Smiths, we have been finding our groove this month with our newest family member deciding that sleep doesn't always have to be avoided.

We have had the pleasure of playing with some interesting things this month, with a few items of clothing to get hot and sweaty in or to simply show off your summer bod. There are also running shoes, cycling tech, a wet suit and some cool swimming goggles that will track your performance. There is a range of audio equipment, some that let you enjoy your tunes, other focused on the audio of your favourite shows and another that lets you step away from your desk whilst still being able to communicate with customers (you can even work outside in the sunshine). We have some glasses to protect your eyes from the sun and some to protect against the blue light emitted from screens, there is also some handy items to add to your kitchen. Whilst we brace ourselves for the school holidays, we wish you all a lovely summer.

Editor and chief

04. skullCaNdy Crusher aNC XT 2

06. spIder X BaCkpaCker kIT

08. sherpa TarChO Tee

10. FOrm smarT swIm GOGGles

12. epOs audIO ImpaCT d 30 usB ml

14. reIshuNGer dIGITal rICe COOker

16. seNNheIser TV Clear

18. leadJOy m1B

20. kITCheNaId FOOd prOCessOr

22. TrIBIT aquaease

24. TrIBIT XsOuNd meGa

26. ON ruNNING ClOudsurFer

28. GuNNar lIGhTNING BOlT 360

30. hammerhead karOO 2

32. slOppy JOe 05 ClassIC square sweaTshIrT

34. TraCklemeNTs

36. BamBOO ClOThING NOVea s/s TraINING TOp

38. BamBOO ClOThING seamless aCTIVe TOp

40. OrCa apeX FlOaT weTsuIT

42. kylOe IN The wIld aCe

44. kylOe IN The wIld pOseIdON

Managing Director

Alex Hilling-Smith Editor

Emma Hilling-Smith

Writer Dave Hicks Writer

Peter Hilling

For all media related enquiries please contact us at info@thereviewsmiths.com

For Advertising Enquiries 0208 191 8472

skullCaNdy Crusher aNC XT 2

It’s been about 6 ½ years since Skullcandy released the first Crusher so we were well overdue an update and, it’s fair to say, it’s got a lot more bells and whistles to it this time round! Along with the adjustable Crusher Bass you have hands-free voice control, active noise cancelling, personal sound checking, the Skull-IQ App (necessary for the sound checking) amongst many other features.

The Bluetooth has, perhaps unsurprisingly been updated to 5.2 and if you prefer wired listening there’s the option of a 3.5mm jack also with the wire included. The button controls are fairly straight-forward with volume up/down and play/pause as well as a distinctive orange power on/off and connect button. The majority of the tweaking comes via the Skull-IQ app and allows you to add all sorts of functions if you double or triple tap or even hold buttons down, giving you quite a bit of control and mapped to suit how you want to use your headset. The sound-checking mentioned earlier is based on an expectation of how your hearing is based on your age so you may need to spend a bit of time finding the right level that suits your hearing capabilities.

Lovers of bass are going to be very happy with these wireless headphones and they’ve gone all out on bringing this feature home – with a name like Crusher, that’s not exactly a shock! Potentially to the detriment of the sound quality itself but, let’s be honest, when choosing massive bass, you’ve got to be prepared to lose out on something else so really comes as no surprise. You could always turn the Crusher feature off of course and that’s handy if dealing with phone calls or watching a movie but if you do that while listening to music, why did you buy these in the first place?! Does exactly what it says on the tin.

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lOTs OF Bass!

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yOu GO Bass all T he way

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w IT h a lOT OF Fu NCTIONalIT y T haT shOuld appease T he

mOsT ardeNT OF Bass

eNT husI asTs!

For more information on the Skullcandy Crusher ANC XT 2 click here

spIder X BaCkpaCker kIT

If you’re the kind of photographer that likes to capture moments as you see them rather than set up for them then you’re probably familiar with those perfect pictures agonisingly missed by precious seconds as you’re struggling with your camera strap/case/excited hands in an attempt to capture it before it goes! The Spider X Backpacker Kit aims to be a solution to this problem.

There are 3 components to this kit. Firstly, you get the holster. This is the lynchpin for the rest of the set up and can be easily attached to any belt simply by clipping it directly on. Next you have the Camera Plate. This is a fully adjustable plate that is designed to fit securely on to your camera. It has ‘camera bumpers’ to help keep the camera from slipping and you get an Allen key with it to help tighten the plate to your camera. As well as this, it has a mounting hole sized ¼”-20 that fits the majority of tripod stands so no need to fiddle about removing it if you want to use one of these instead. Once in place, it’s very secure (quite essential really!) and you can then slot the anti-twist pin in to the holster to keep it securely in place. The holster has a quick access release trigger that self-locks to prevent any accidental slipping out meaning you can carry your camera around confident it will be safe and, crucially, available at the flick of a switch!

The third component is a Backpack Adaptor that the holster slips in to. This has been designed to fit on to a backpack strap so you can keep you camera even closer to the kind of height you would use it at and not be on your hip, potentially getting in the way of other essential gear you may need on your journey.

For more information on the Spider X Backpacker Kit click here

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£75

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BaC kpaC ker k IT, a

musT-haV e IF yOu ’ re a keeN phOTOG rapher

wh Ile Ou T h I k ING .

To really do this T-shirt justice, we have to dig in to what and who Sherpa are. Founded in 2003 by Tashi Sherpa (the guy that has climbed more 8000m+ peaks than anyone ever), this company focuses on benefitting the local communities based around and in the Himalayas. They provide employment to skilled women weavers and scholarships to children in Nepal and work with the charity Room To Read to provide ‘school days’ for the children, especially young girls in an effort to ensure gender equality through education. Each time you purchase something for them, they contribute to this with an ambition to provide 10 million school days by 2030.

So, you can purchase this T-Shirt safe in the knowledge that more good will come out of it than just you having a nice new piece of clothing! The top itself is made from Organic Cotton (free from pesticide use, less water used

in production and made with recycled cotton fabric) and comes in a wide variety of sizes as well as 10 different colour choices. The neckline is prevented from overstretching due to reinforcement tape woven in to the collar which also has the Tarcho graphic that you see on the front of the T-Shirt. Tarcho is the name given to Tibetan prayer flags commonly found strung along mountain ridges in the Himalayas and the graphic is inspired by that very thing. The prayer flags are placed there in the belief that the good will and compassion represented by them will get blown by the wind far and wide benefiting anywhere they reach. Each colour has a specific meaning (blue – sky, white – air, red – fire, green – water, yellow – earth) and are placed in this specific order. All of them together represent balance, key to the Buddhist faith. Even if you don’t believe in their religion, the message isn’t a bad one to have emblazoned across your chest!

a deCeNT, well-made eCO -F r I eN dly T- sh I rT

T haT T he purChase OF CONT r IBu T es TO helpING k I ds lear N IN Nepal w IT h a COOl

G raph IC ON T he F rONT. whaT ’ s NOT TO l I ke?

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FOrm smarT swIm GOGGles

Well, it was bound to happen eventually! Now everyone can feel like they’re living in the future or they’re some kind of superspy or something. When you’re swimming that is but what good Superspy doesn’t spend some time in the water, eh? Of course, these aren’t spy goggles but they are pretty good at giving you up to date information about your swim without the need to stop and check a watch or have someone else shouting stats at you when you get to the end of your length…

You can choose what data to see and which eye lense to display it in (handy if, like me, you have one strong eye and one not so great) and can choose to show time, distance and pace as well as set your chosen swimming style. The goggles will track how far along you are and can act pretty much as a coach, including recommended rest times and even progress updates that give you encouraging messages part way through – well, I count being told I’m on the final stretch as an encouraging message anyway! As well as this, you can link the goggles up via Bluetooth to the App and sync your swims – they’re also compatible with Smart watches from Apple and Garmin if you have those already.

The goggles themselves are solidly built with FDA-Certified silicone around the lenses and 7 different bridges provided along with adjustable straps so you can get your fit just right. A special chemical coating on the inside prevents fog build up so you can always see the data you need and the battery life is good at about 16 hours. And for those who don’t just swim in safe, comfortable pools? Well, you can also use these in open water so improving your swim for that next triathlon is even easier.

For more information on the Form Smart Swim Goggles click here

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I NsTa NT up-TO -daT e daTa

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CONV eNI eNCe

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VI ew T ha N ma N y may

Be used TO, espeCI ally T hOse

Ou T dOOrs T ypes .

IO ImpaCT d 30 usB ml

Having worked in a call centre myself in the past I can safely say that one of the key things that can affect morale in the office is that feeling of being ‘chained to your desk’. Constant monitoring of your time away from desk (among many other unhealthy ‘performance trackers’) never led anyone to feel valued or looked after, leading to a high staff turn-around, which simply isn’t good for business. Now, I’m not saying a wireless headset is going to solve all these problems by itself, but just having that freedom of movement as a call-centre operator can make a surprising difference to how you feel at the end of the day when clocking out.

So, now we have established it’s a good idea, what does this wireless headset have to offer? To start with, it has a pretty decent range of 55 metres which should be plenty of distance in any office these days so if people are needing to go and talk to a specialist or team leader while on a call, the waiting time for a customer can be greatly reduced leading to better resolution times overall. Couple this with noise cancellation technology in the microphone allowing you to have a clear conversation despite any background noise and your customer is far more likely to hang up happy.

The headset itself has the option of being worn with both ears or you can go for a single ear coverage, depending on preference and the base unit the headset sits on is small and compact, taking up minimal space on the desk and making hot-desking that much easier, especially given its prevalence post-Covid. It can also connect directly to whatever phone system you are using or straight to your PC’s depending on how you receive your calls making it pretty adaptable.

reIshuNGer dIGITal rICe COOker

That’s the thing with rice cookers, they cook rice. And just rice. Well, normally. I mean you can just shove something in one and hope for the best (nothing wrong with a bit of experimenting in the kitchen sometimes!) but don’t expect it do a great job if it’s not rice! But then, this thing comes along and suddenly, your ‘avant-garde’ style of cooking is suddenly normalised…

Not only does it have 7 settings for 7 different styles of rice (I had no idea there were that many, did you?!) including Persian Tahdig (a style of rice slightly burnt for a crispy texture) and congee (rice porridge) as well as your standard wholegrain, peeled or sushi styles but it has further settings that allow you to cook things that aren’t rice! You can make soups, cereals, knock up some quinoa, steam your favourite vegetables/fish/meat and even bake a cake should you so desire. With a 1.5 Litre capacity you should be able to fit enough of anything in to happily feed a hungry family of four although if you do use it to cook rice you can get about 8 standard size servings (feels like an added bonus for using it for what it was originally designed for…).

From a practical point of view the internal pot has a stainless steel base and a double non-stick ceramic coating so you can easily get whatever you’re cooking in there out and clean it easily with a non-abrasive sponge. It lifts straight out for ease of serving and cleaning courtesy of well placed handles and you also get a measuring cup, rice spoon, ladle and steamer insert so you can do those vegetables nice and easy. And to top it all off, the LED touchscreen is a decent size and easy to use.

seNNheIser TV Clear

You know when you’re trying to watch a show on TV and you reach a crucial moment? The sound goes low, the lighting changes and the lead character whispers the crucial reveal in an atmosphere-drenched moment that leaves you absolutely knocked for 6? Only you missed it because that’s also the exact moment an inconvenient train hurtles past the window or your pet decides now is a good time to loudly complain that it wants a fuss or your partner (who gives no jot’s whatsoever about whatever you’re engrossed in) picks that moment to start talking about what next door have done with their patio… Yeah, kinda gutting isn’t it?

Well, these earbuds and accompanying transmitter have been designed specifically to allow you to have an uninterrupted listening experience so you don’t miss any of those crucial moments. The focus is on enhancing the actors’ voices in whatever you’re watching and is, it’s fair to say, more aimed at those of us that are hard of hearing as opposed to providing a cinema-style auditory experience, not that that’s a bad thing! They perform admirably in this respect with 5 speech clarity levels easily cycled through using the earbuds and further customisation available via the App.

They’re easy to set up too - the transmitter plugs in to your TV either via a 3.5mm audio jack or in to the digital optical output and then it’s a simple matter of changing the audio settings on your TV before opening the charging case with the buds in. I love that there’s a little warning sign on a piece of paper for this next bit! Leave them for 10 seconds before taking them out to connect and they should work straight away, simple! With 15 hours of battery life, that’s plenty of uninterrupted, crystal clear TV viewing.

leadJOy m1B

Gaming on an i-Phone can be awkward. With the screen encompassing the entire fascia, you have to rely on either onscreen buttons to get your desired result (and so reduce the amount of screen you can actually see the game in – not to mention the screen getting grubby quite quickly) or awkward-to-reach-comfortably buttons on the side of your phone that require you to perform finger gymnastics every time you want to relax! The solution is a device like this from Leadjoy. There’s plenty of them out there so what’s so great about this one in particular?

Well, for starters, they have my new favourite thing on gaming pads –Hall Effect Magnetic Sensors on the analogue sticks! These basically mean quicker, more accurate response times and a far longer shelf-life than your traditional analogue stick – it’s great to see this feature gaining wider use and hopefully, the larger console games company’s will start to follow suit in the near future! As far as this product goes, it makes for a very responsive gaming experience and gives you the reassurance that your controller is likely to last a while. The rest of the controller has the standard D-pad and 4 button lay-out you should expect as well as 2 shoulder buttons on either side and very much follows what has become standard controller lay-out.

The pad can be used with any i-Phone that has iOS13 or sooner with the i-Phone 6 being the lowest on the list of compatible devices so pretty far-reaching to be fair, great for those that haven’t been able to keep up with the latest devices. It also supports Bluetooth headphones (but not 3.5mm ones) and has a pass-through charger so you can charge while playing. Finally, it supports EGG 3DS and most of the popular streaming services such as Xbox Remote Play and NVIDIA GeForce as well as others.

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phON e BaTT ery.

CONs

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yOu haV e TO Take a N y prOT eCTIV e Case OFF Or yOur

phON e wON ’ T FIT

£65.99

kITCheNaId FOOd prOCessOr

Creating meals and making dinner can be hard work sometimes. We watch all those cookery programs on telly, get inspired by those lovely looking dishes, get all enthusiastic and then find out we have the cutting and prep skills of a 5 year old with month-old playdough… A little dispiriting to say the least!

What impressed me most with this food processor is its versatility. To begin with, the feeder is nice and wide, allowing you to get all manner of foodstuffs in there without having to do much in the way of prep work just to get things to fit in. As well as that, it’s 3 sizes in one with the smallest size allowing you to add small liquid ingredients such as oil at a steady rate – perfect for salads or emulsifying sauces for example. As well as this, the kit comes with an external and adjustable slicing knob and disc, allowing you to easily modify thickness of slice, a dicing kit (complete with a dicing kit cleaning tool – absolutely invaluable, so glad they included this!) that lets you get a far more perfect dice than you or I will ever get with knives alone and a shredding disc that does medium or fine and is reversible.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a food processor without the ability to blend and the stainless steel blade does that as well as you would expect, able to handle nuts and other hard foods with ease. You also get a dough blade included so you can save on the hard work of manually kneading your dough and the three speed options of High, Low and Pulse mean you can set it for whatever you are using it for. Finally, there’s a lid for the 3.1 litre bowl and everything fits inside for ease of storage.

Takes up a small amOu NT OF sTOraG e spaCe

easy TO Clea N

a N easy TO use FOOd prOCessOr T haT sTOres away

qu IT e N eaTly. yOu ’ ll wON der hOw yOu ma NaG ed w IT hOu T IT!

TrIBIT aquaease

Music in the shower. Always loved the idea of this but the shower itself usually drowns out the sound of the speaker most times and kind of ruins the whole ambience. Not to mention the point. The awkwardness of skipping a track (not slipping over or avoiding getting water on the player is like an endurance test/puzzle all on its own!), especially if you’re all comfortable soaking in the bath combined with the inherent danger of electricity and water makes for effort best avoided in the long run. How dull.

So, how about a Bluetooth speaker designed for the shower? With IPX7 water resistance, this one is for people who want that music right in there with them when they’re in there, not distorted by a wall of water and shower curtain. You can literally hook this thing up right by the shower head if you like and you won’t have any problems with it (make sure the plug on the portals is well and truly secure though!). The Bluetooth is the latest version with a range of up to 100ft but you don’t even need to rely on this if you don’t want to as there is space for a 32GB SD card as well as a nice light display that keeps up with the beat of the music. If you like, you can turn this musical display off – it will certainly help extend the battery life). It also has a clock bult in to the LED display so you can keep an eye on the time and not be late if you get carried away listening to the tunes!

It makes use of the Tribit App so you can easily modify the EQ to how it suits you and the buttons are nice and easy to press and identify, a boon when covered in soap! The battery life is a decent 18 hours at most and only takes about 3 hours to charge via USB, with the cable included in the box.

a well-prICed shOwer speaker ThaT allOws yOu TO eNJOy yOur musIC

£33.99

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TrIBIT XsOuNd meGa

You could be forgiven for thinking that this external Bluetooth speaker is all about partying (it’s got flashing bright lights, is easily portable, an Xbass function and looks pretty cool) but, in all honesty, it’s got a lot more uses to it than that and, being the old fuddy duddy I am, other things than partying sprang to mind. Maybe that’s the sign of a good product – a wide appeal?

For starters, it has an audiobook function. Straight away I’m thinking this is ideal for kids, especially if you’re unable to read them that bedtime story for whatever reason. The lights give them a good visual while you can play their favourite story and it wouldn’t look out of place in most modern kids bedrooms I imagine. Similarly, there’s no reason why you couldn’t make use of it yourself in this way – imagine having a recipe read out to you and not have to worry about getting your speaker covered in liquid or food (it’s IPX7 rated so can even be submerged in shallow water for up to half an hour!) while you do so?

Of course, camping is the main thing that springs to mind for me. Whether you’re in a more lively site (use that Xbass!) or a more quiet one (Music setting), this speaker should give you what you need. It can have up to 20 hours battery life (significantly less if you pump it out at high volumes however) and also has 2 USB ports to charge other items from it if you need to. Handily, the lights can act as a low power torch in the dark, proving quite handy when finding your pitch at night. It also comes with a shoulder strap for ease of transport (weighs in at just over a kilo so hardly a burden) and uses Bluetooth 5.0 to connect up with a wireless range of just under 100 ft.

£99.99

3.5mm JaC k FOr wheN yOu J usT wa NT

IT all TO yOurselF CONs BaTT ery COuld Be BeTT er. NOT T he laT esT BlueTOOT h

ON ruNNING ClOudsurFer

Everyone knows by now that there’s a lot more to sports apparel than just a comfortable fit, even for the most casual ‘keep-fitter’. Take running for example or, more specifically, running shoes. There are certain designs that suit certain uses with some better for getting added speed in your performance and others better suited for an all round contribution. The difference in the height of the sole between your heel and toes is another factor to take in to account as is the cushioning of the sole itself. There’s plenty more things to worry about on top of those, so is it any wonder there’s so many designs out there?

The Cloudsurfer is a neutral set up of shoe – in other words, it works with the natural rolling motion of your foot to create a smooth journey. The heel-to-toe drop (the higher this number, the more suited it is for people that tend to run with their heel hitting the ground first as it puts more load on the knees and hips) is 10mm, which is about average for standard running shoes. In fact, both of those things are fairly standard so what are you paying for and getting with these shoes? Well, the cushioning that On Running have implemented has been brought about by extensive computer analysis and modelling and the resultant design of the mid-sole basically enhances that smoothness brought about by the design, shape and heel-to-toe drop. In other words, most people are going to find running in these shoes an incredibly comfortable experience, which surely has to be pretty high on the list of requirements for a pair of running shoes for anybody I would have thought.

They come in a choice of 4 different colours and range from sizes 6.5 to 13.5 and are also made from 30% recycled material.

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£150

COmpu T er mOdelled m I d - sOles prOVI de a V ery smOOT h

ru NNING eX per I eNCe

IF yOu ’ re prepared TO pay FOr IT.

GuNNar lIGhTNING BOlT 360

Well, I learnt something today that is genuinely going to affect my life. I am a gamer and play regularly on my favourite gaming console. It’s a great way to stay connected with my friends when I’m unable to see them and to relieve stress (depending on the game…). What I didn’t realise is the negative effect that the light coming from my TV screen has on me. Specifically, blue light. It actually prevents your brain from producing Melotonin which is crucial in sending you to sleep and certainly explains not being able to drop straight off to sleep after coming off-line. These gaming glasses help with this.

Basically, they provide protection from the affects of blue light, much in the same way sunglasses protect you from UV light. Of course, as anyone that wears glasses will tell you, wearing glasses combined with a headset has got to be one of the most awkward things going and leads to another problem – that of headaches through too much constant pressure on your temples. Well, those clever people at Gunnar have come up with a design that bypasses that also with these Lightning Bolt 360’s. You get 3 arm types with each pair: the regular lightning bolt shaped ones, lightweight ones designed to balloon out away from your head and strap ones, handy for wearing if you’re outside. Switching to suit is pretty easy with a button on the inside of the frames allowing you to release whichever arm you currently have in. You also get both indoor and outdoor lenses which are easy to swap and allow you to see screens out in the sunshine clearly as well as providing UV protection. On top of all that, they also provide a subscription service for those that have to wear glasses anyway, sweet!

a V ery adapTa Ble way TO lOOk

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a N d alsO haV e T he V ersaTIl IT y

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a Ta BleT sC reeN wh Ile ON

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dO I wa NT TO lOOk l I ke B ONO Or a l I G?

For more information on the Gunnar Lightning Bolt 360 click here

£39.95

Most people rely on their Sat Nav when driving to new places these days, or even when going to somewhere familiar, mainly to keep an eye on the traffic situation and in case of any roadworks or changes to roads that have popped up since the last time they travelled that way. But, what about the humble cyclist? Well, you can get Sat Nav’s for them too and this one from Hammerhead does a pretty good job of covering almost any situation you can think of.

For starters you have the expected ability to build your own routes on the device itself or download ones from 3rd party apps if you want to go on a leisurely, scenic ride as suggested by others. As well as this it has multiple other features that put it ahead of many other bike Sat Nav’s. There are audio notifications for approaching traffic and turns and the routes are automatically focused on cycling as opposed to just the roads – a great boon with the amount

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of cycle-only routes out there these days helping you to avoid potentially dangerous motor-vehicle heavy areas. One of my favourite features however is the auto-detection of rises coming up so allowing you to anticipate the harder parts of your journey and potentially work around them, even in non-planned routes.

As well as all the up-to-date Sat Nav functionality, the Karoo 2 also records and provides data for you from a work-out point of view so you can see things like heartrates, power elevation and visualisation of your gear changes. Combined with the ability to sync your rides on the AXS Web Dashboard, you really get to make the most of your post-ride analysis. All of this on a decent sized high pixel density screen, automatic re-routing and up to 32GB storage. Makes me want to get out there on my bike right now!

Sloppy Joe clothing! I remember when these guys first launched back in 1993, how they were all the rage and anyone seen wearing one of these was instantly catapulted in to the outer realms of ‘sooo cool…’ Well, that’s what I was told by my siblings anyway, I was far more in to metal music at that time of my life so funnily enough, I didn’t agree back then! Of course, with any fashion item or fad, they eventually got replaced by the next big thing and, in all honesty, I had no idea they were still going. Well, indeed they are, celebrating 30 years this year in fact!

The reason they’re still around and have not faded in to obscurity is, quite simply, because they are good quality, well made and comfortable sweat shirts. Their founder, Jackie Harris, wanted a comfortable, over-sized, easy-towear-and-launder top with a variety of unique colours and that is what you see here – the Classic Square Sweatshirt. Made with 100% organic cotton and available in 10

colours unique to Sloppy Joe (including the classic blue colour immortalised by Princess Diana that has now been re-introduced to their range and actually named ‘Diana Blue’!), you’ve got to admit it certainly encapsulates a certain relaxed chic and pretty much just makes you want to curl in to an over-sized sofa with a good book… Oh how my teenage self would be disgusted with me right now!

The loose fit makes it a useful article of clothing all year round (not just when you’re feeling a bit cold!) and also gives it a nice casual look that is equally at home when you’re out and about as it is when you’re, well… at home! I guess that’s why a classic becomes a classic – it carves out its own niche and I can’t think of anything else that sums up ‘relaxed cool’ in quite the same way, despite my own preference on clothing.

TraCklemeNTs

Heres a word from our friends at Tracklements;

Building on the success of the wildly popular Fresh Chilli Jam the latest, steamy offerings from Tracklements are ….

Tracklements Rocket Hot Sauce Made with a fiery combination of Bird’s Eye and Scotch Bonnet chillies, this vegan potent potion is a shot of molten lava for burgers, tacos, pizzas, curries, falafels and fajitas. It’s superlatively moreish on pretty much everything.

Tracklements Sriracha Chilli Sauce Not all sriracha sauces are made equal! Tracklements take whole fresno chillies (for a fruitier flavour), chop and ferment them on site to make the base for their Sriracha which is what sets it apart from the competition. Made to a traditional recipe, a dash of fish sauce is added for an authentic tongue-tingling tang and intense heat. Splash on to cheese on toast, egg fried rice, corn fritters, pho, spring rolls, meat, fish or mix into mayo for a delicious chippy dip. There’s nothing that can’t be brought to life with this sauce, the zhushing up possibilities are endless!

Tracklements Smokin’ Chipotle Sauce This smokin’ hot sauce made with red chillies (for poke), smoked Chipotle chillies (for smokiness) and Scotch Bonnet chillies (just for fun) tastes sweet, smoky and spicey. Barbecues will wonder what they’ve been missing. It makes meats sizzle with suspense, veg explode with va-va -oom and tofu tingle with joy. Add to pulled pork, hot dawgs, veg kebabs and jackfruit in any form. It’s also utterly fabulous with the quick and easy traditional Mexican brunch favourite - huevos rancheros – fried eggs, served on corn chips and smothered with warm, spicey salsa. Si por favor!

Tracklements Rocket Hot Sauce, Tracklements Sriracha Chilli Sauce and Tracklements Smokin’ Chipotle Sauce RRP £3.50 for 150ml each are available individually from fine food delis and farm shops nationwide and online at www. tracklements.co.uk. But it’s well worth buying all three to have in easy reach to deliver a quick flavourpacked punch to make a myriad of every day dishes, dressings, dips and marinades go from fine to fabulous, in just a few shakes!

From £3.50

BamBOO ClOThING

More and more textile companies seem to be turning to bamboo as their preferred clothing material and, as their name implies, these guys have gone all out with it! BAM Bamboo Clothing are a company that takes their impact on the planet with great seriousness, conducting studies in to their own impact and focusing on every part of the products’ journey from the crop grower, how the materials they use are processed, right through to the people making the clothes themselves. It’s fair to say there is a level of transparency here that you rarely get to see in many modern companies. So, when you buy from them, you can be pretty sure you yourself are making a minimal impact through your purchase.

On to the Training top itself. The largest element of this top is the unique material that BAM Bamboo Clothing have designed called Novea. It’s made from a blend of Bamboo viscose and Naia™ which is a fibre made from wood pulp that has been responsibly sourced. The top is 59% Novea, 32% acetate and 9% elastane giving you a product that is very light, breathable and extremely soft. It’s surprisingly heavy at 190 gsm (most light T-shirts come in at about 130-150 gsm) but due to the way it’s made and the material it’s made from, it doesn’t feel like it. The bamboo within it does a good job of retaining moisture and so the top doesn’t get as damp as traditional cotton for example, meaning less restriction the further you go through your workout. It also means less need to wash it as regularly as a traditional cotton top as oxygen doesn’t reach the moisture therefore less bad smells are created. The design of the top itself is pleasing and it comes in a choice of two colours, black or Olympic blue.

I mpaCT as well as BeING a Ble TO wOrk Ou T IN COm FOrT.

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BamBOO ClOThING seamless aCTIVe TOp

One of the problems with clothing when you exercise is how easily it can ruck up and bunch itself in the most awkward of places. Before you know it, you’ve got blisters and rashes all over yourself during what should be a simple, easy and safe way to get fit and enjoy yourself! Most of this rucking tends to centre around the stitching in your clothes, so one way to get around this problem is to remove the seams.

That’s what BAM have done their level best to achieve here. Obviously, they’re not going to get rid of all the seams, that’s not really practical (is it even possible?) but what they have done is move the most obvious, problem-causing seam away from the shoulder joint and made the piece of material covering your shoulder and upper arms join the body of the top across your shoulder blades and just above your pectoral area. Not only does this help limit the rucking up of the material but it also gives you a better freedom of movement as you’re not fighting against the natural pull of one material panel against another, no matter what exercise you’re attempting.

As you would expect from BAM this top is made using bamboo viscose and so is great for moisture absorption and breathability, not to mention it is far more ecologically sustainable than the more traditional cotton used in most clothing. It also makes use of Amni Soul Eco which is a specially formulated nylon that has been designed to degrade in the space of a few years as opposed to 100’s that you typically see with most synthetic materials. This makes this top not only super soft and comfortable but generally better for the environment on the whole so, win-win!

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OrCa apeX FlOaT weTsuIT

Wetsuits, while pretty essential for staying warm in open water are sometimes quite restrictive. The very nature of a wetsuit tends to prevent full movement, especially in the shoulder and arm areas and moving through water is tough enough as it is! So this newest wetsuit in the Orca range does it’s best to get around these traditional issues.

Firstly, it is their most buoyant yet. It achieves this through the use of Exolift technology. This is simply 3 separate layers of neoprene, with the outer layer benefiting from a Nano Ice SCS Coating (basically fills all the microscopic pores and makes the material ‘water-phobic’ if you like, making that push through water all the easier) and the middle layer is specially treated so there is no water absorption at all. That’s just half of it though, the real magic is in the lower body where there are hundreds of air pockets sealed between neoprene layers providing a good level of buoyancy and so helps to maintain your optimum hydrodynamic position when swimming. Speaking of the lower body, the suit has different levels of thickness depending on your temperature needs with 3 mm’s on the torso and 5 mm’s on the legs – the further from your torso, the more insulation. Sounds obvious when you state it but it’s this attention to detail that Orca are quite good at!

The Apex Float also benefits from bamboo fibres in the lining giving more flexibility (as well as helping to cut down odour and bacteria growth) and so less effort is needed to stretch the material, 72% less force than neoprene that hasn’t been made in this way in fact! All of this combines for a very smooth, comfortable swim, perfect for the competitive athletes out there among you.

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Kyloe are at it again, this time with a pair of sunglasses designed to reduce the amount of glare that you get from lightreflecting surfaces. These lenses are a piece of engineering mastery (at least to my way of thinking…) and are made up of 9 different layers! Starting with an anti-reflective coating, they move through layers such as a PVA polarised filter membrane that helps to reduce the exposure to reflective light all the way up to a mirrored coating that (you guessed it!) is a reflective colour, reflecting even more light! It’s fair to say they’ve gone all out on keeping that glare down with these sunglasses.

As well as that, they possess Kyloe’s standard 100% UV400 protection keeping those nasty UVA and UVB rays away and of course they have the ever-useful anti-scratch and anti-salt water coating. Seeing as the most likely place you’ll be using these is by the seaside, this is pretty useful. Speaking of where you can use them, with this level of anti-glare, you could probably make use of them happily on a sunny day in winter when all that snow is reflecting the light and making it hard to see giving them an all-year round ubiquity which is a massive bonus for me – I can never find my sunglasses after the summer as I will have inevitably put them away ‘somewhere safe’ – no need to do that now!

They are made using a lightweight material that is extremely durable and have the rubber grips at the back of the arms that give them that non-slip feature so you can be assured they’re not going to slip off any time soon and Kyloe have guaranteed that with your money back if they do. They’re pretty safe from being dropped too so you’re unlikely to break them any time soon, making them a solid purchase in my eyes.

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kylOe IN The wIld pOseIdON

The major problem with most sunglasses is, well, you have to wear them when it’s sunny. That’s not the problem of course but, when it’s sunny, it’s usually hot and when you get hot, you get sweaty and, you guessed it, the damn things keep slipping off and askance, especially if you’re trying to be active in the lovely sunny weather you’re trying to protect your eyes from! That’s where these In The Wild Poseidon sunglasses from Kyloe come in.

Now, they’re not the snazziest looking sunglasses out there, I’ll be honest with you, but that’s not why you’re going to be wearing them. You’ll be wearing them because they’ve been designed to stay on your head (Kyloe are so confident with this, they offer a money back guarantee if they do slip…) and, as far as I’m concerned, functionality trumps form any day of the week (that’s my excuse for being fashion-blind anyway)…! Firstly, they’re made from a very lightweight and flexible material so you don’t easily notice they are there. The flexibility adds to the toughness and gives them a kind of ‘rugged’ feel which I like. Secondly, the lenses are crystal clear and really quite impressive, giving you a really good view. They’re made up of 7 different layers to achieve this and also provide 100% UV400 protection as well as having anti-scratch technology so do the job they are meant to.

The other piece of good news is that these are made from 100% recycled materials and despite my initial disparaging remarks about how they look, they don’t look terrible at all! I would quite happily wear these out and about even if not engaged in physical activity especially as they seemed to be designed for the slightly larger than average head, a rare thing with sunglasses.

£69.99

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NOT GOING TO w IN a N y Fash ION awards

I deally su IT ed FOr T hOse eNG aGed IN physICal aCTIVIT y IN T he su Nsh IN e, wOrk a T reaT!

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