Granger's Extreme Cleaner Spray-On

The new Granger's Extreme Cleaner Plus spray-on aims to maintain down performance on by being a simply spray-on, wipe-off version of their proven technical cleaner with anti-pong effect. No washing machines, no tumble driers, less hassle.

Features It's simply a special version of Grangers Extreme Cleaner Plus in a spray bottle with a nice trigger thing to create a spray. It's not the same as normal Extreme Cleaner Plus by the way, so don't try spraying that. Like Extreme Cleaner, it also reduces pong factor.

In Action Okay, the moment of shame - we have a red RAB Glacier Extreme jacket that's been in use since 1996 without ever having been washed. It's been to Nepal twice, South American twice, Scotland numerous times, as well as Glossop Tesco and loads of pubs. We've also washed the car in it, hosed down mountain bikes and generally abused the poor thing.

Not surprisingly it's reached a shameful state with black grime crusted around the cuffs, pocket openings, zip, drawcord tunnel and other random spots. In fact it's become an embarassment for casual use - though of course it does have that sought-after hardened expedition look. Okay, a prime candidate for cleaning.

Following Granger's instructions, we hung the jacket over the bath and sprayed a light application onto the outside surface of the garment before wiping it off with a clean, damp sponge paying particular attention to the spots with the ingrained flith... Yes, we did mean flith. Don't over spray because half the point of the spray-on method is to stop the down from getting saturated. Fortuantely most Pertex-shelled down jackets have some water-repellant qualities.

The drips from the jacket were satisfyingly brown and grubby looking, though once the surface is dampened, it's hard to see exactly what's clean and what's grubby. We left half the jacket untouched for comparison purposes and left it to dry overnight.

Next morning we rushed downstairs for a close inspection. The results were impressive, the cleaned half of the jacket was visibly cleaner and only a few of the worst stains were still visible and even then much lighter than before. The cleaned shell fabric had a slightly stiffer feel, presumably due to some residue from the cleaner and, as far as we could tell, the loft of the down was totally unimpaired.

It avoids the problem of loft reduction through washing and the endless drying process - if you do wash a down sleeping bag or jacket by hand, we suggest you throw a couple of tennis balls into the tumble drier with it to maintain loft and don't assume it's dry just because the surface is. At last we can wear our jacket to Tesco without sniffy looks from the checkout staff.

The Spray-On Extreme Cleaner Plus can also be used as a spot cleaner on waterproof jackets, down clothing, rucksacs or whatever, and like other Grangers technical cleaner, won't reduce water repellancy and is a good base for re-proofing.

Great stuff. Just about the only downside is the lack of that intangible, 'totally clean' feel you get from a full washing process. Then again, your jacket will still loft afterwards.

If you'd like to add your own experiences of this product check out our user review system and post your opinions to the world. If you have questions you can mail us direct, ask Richard Gear or try a posting to our gear forum.

Discuss this story

Talkback: Granger's Extreme Cleaner Spray-On

First Name:
Last Name:
Nickname:
Email:
Security Image:	Enter the code shown:
I agree to the site's Terms and Conditions & Code of Conduct: