Hi ho…

One of the ways that I’ve managed to keep items and pack weights down over the last three years or so is to pack items that have some kind of silver content. So far I’ve bought and used socks from M&S and t-shirts and underwear from Rohan.

The M&S socks have either been cotton rich city style socks or trainer liners and their use came about after Caroline made one or ten comments about sweaty feet smells when I came in from work. 

At the time I was wearing approach shoes or Gore-tex lined boots to work and as I will admit to having feet that do smell after being encased in such footwear for a day, then something had to be done about it.

Fortunately I was working near the local branch of M&S at the time, so I popped in one lunchtime and took a look around to see whether there was anything around that could deal with the problem. And there was…

So after buying a pack of trainer socks, I started wearing them for work without telling Caroline and only fessed up when she made a comment about my feet being better recently – ‘not as smelly’ came into it somewhere along the line if memory serves me right.

Since then, all of my city socks and trainer socks have been from M&S and those with a high foot pong factor who have also tried them have rated them too. Prices start at £12 for five pairs of trainer socks and the same for city socks (number of pairs vary according to style chosen). Prices checked on 28/8/14.

After that came a discovery on Rohan’s website. They were advertising t-shirts and underwear containing silver so again a couple of tester purchases were made. Whilst the t-shirt was worn under a fleece for a few days at a time, not even I wear shreddies for more than one day. 

In both cases though, there were no close encounters of a smelly kind and no complaints either so a couple of more shirts and pairs of Cool Silver Trunks were bought. All of these items had one further factor in their favour – the ease in which they could be washed and worn again. 

Whilst the fabric of the underwear hasn’t changed over the years, that used on the t-shirts has. The slinky, smooth material has been replaced by a more textured marl outer finish that gives the shirt a less outdoorsy look. The shirts still have those high wicking/low odour/easy care qualities, but the colour palette changes as seasons change. 

My first two were red and blue and whilst I missed out on the green of a certain frog puppet, I could be tempted to buy another blue and one of the new charcoal shirts later in the year. The fabric is 100% polyester with Coolant, Dynamic Moisture Control and that silver based Polygiene thrown in for good measure. Sun protection UPF is 40+.

In each case, the shirts are from Rohan’s Core Silver line-up and they are currently £36 each (28/8/14) is , the Cool Silver Trunks are £19 per pair (briefs are also available at £17 a pair). The t-shirts and trunks (only) are also available in lighter weight Ultra formats at £28 and £21 respectively. Rohan products are available in their own stores or via www.rohan.co.uk where details of the brand’s silver ladies items can also be found…