Review: 66° North Grettir T-Shirt

Being an adventure and outdoor brand photographer and filmmaker, I tend to carry large, heavy rucksacks over questionable terrain, in all weathers. Therefore, I want a base layer I can rely on to be: A. comfortable, breathable and nicely fitting and B. have fantastic odour control so the people I’m working with don’t start avoiding me.

I’ve bought the classic, ‘cheap as chips’ base layers in the past along with some better quality ones from other well known brands, but these never seem to live up to their written credentials. They often start smelling within a few hours of use, and are quite bad at clinging to the skin when it soaks up moisture. Not to mention substantial heat loss once I’ve stopped moving and the wind chill kicks in.

Now the weather seems to finally be improving, and wanting to give the Grettir a proper trial, I took it out for a test-drive both running and hiking. Being based in Bristol and only a 25 minute drive to Black Down, the highest point of the Mendips at 325m above sea level, I disappeared into the hills to see how it would perform.

With temperatures hovering around the low-mid twenties and a clear sky at midday, I could certainly feel the heat coming off the hillside. Making my way around this part of the mendips with a reasonably loaded pack, I could feel my arms, legs and head begin to sweat, but amazingly the parts of my body that were covered by the Grettir T-shirt didn’t feel at all sweaty or clammy. Likewise, Once I was past the trig point and up on the ridgeline, I felt well protected from the potential wind chill and wet cling (when a fabric gets so saturated with moisture that it sticks to the body). It certainly isn’t windproof (and you wouldn’t want it to be) but it was very good at keeping my body temperature regular throughout being active and stationary, without the need to constantly swap and change my layering system. 

Now, what I really wanted to put to the test was its claim of ‘excellent odour resistance’. Every brand under the sun deems their base layer products to be odour resistant, or even stopping odour from even occurring, and from my experience and others I have spoken to, these products often fall short of the mark. The Grettir T-shirt is made using Polartec® Delta fabric, and this year the brand introduced a new odour-reducing technology to replace their previous silver-based additive. Fresh Face is derived from a naturally sourced and non-GMO mint plant, and promises to deliver the same standard of odour control as silver, but it production methods are significantly kinder to the environment. 

I wanted to test this minty new tech as thoroughly as possible, so, I didn’t wash it during 2 hikes and 1 run across 3 separate days! I was pleasantly surprised at how well it actually lived up to its claim of odour resistance, much better than I anticipated in all honesty. Now, I won’t sit here and claim it didn’t smell, because after the third day it was beginning to whiff a little bit, but after 2 full days in the hills and a run around my local area, I’d say that’s pretty good going. I certainly reckon I could have gotten away with a fourth day before I would begin to consider why people were not standing too close to me.