Outdoor Research Elixir Jacket Review

This next review I'm going to take a look at a more traditional hardshell. Using Gore-Tex Pac-Lite with a 75 denier nylon face fabric, it's very lightweight and easily packable.

Here are the specifications from OR.

+ Durable, waterproof/breathable 75D Gore-Tex® Paclite® fabric
+ Fully seam taped, all-conditions protection
+ Dual-pull adjustable hood folds into collar
+ Double-separating front zipper with internal and external stormflap
+ Pit zips with water-resistant zippers
+ Zippered napoleon and internal pockets
+ Two zippered hand pockets
+ Elastic cuffs with hook/loop tabs
+ Dual drawcord hem adjustments

Avg. weight: 19.3 oz./547 g (size L)

This is my first Pac-Lite shell and so far I like the material. It looks like the inside should feel rubbery, but it doesn't. It instead feels smooth and comfortable. Very strange.

The Elixir has four pockets. YKK zippers through-out with the waterproof kind used on the pockets and pit zips. The main zipper is a nice, coarse-toothed two-way zipper with a compact stormflap arrangement. I like those kinds of zippers since they tend to be durable and easy to use. There's a napoleon pocket (Yay!) of decent size. An inner, zipped mesh pocket and two handwarmers with stormflaps securable with a single patch of velcro for each.

Most of the zippers have knotted-cord zipper pulls, except for the main zipper which has a corded plastic dongle with an OR logo on it. I like this solution, easy to use even with gloves.

The pit zips on this jacket are huge. They go from right above the elbow all the way to the waist. Serious ventilation there.

The hood is stowable in the collar and when stowed, the collar stands up nicely. The brim works well and the volume adjustment accessed with the toggle at the back of the hood, does a good job in cinching the hood down for a good fit, so the hood stays well with your head movements. The locations of the cinch-cords for the hood are again, done in such a manner so as to eliminate points of ingress for water and wind, although not in the same way as the Mithril, since it's a completely different hood design. There is also on this one, a patch of soft, micro-fleece to protect my delicate, yet manly chin.

The cuffs are similar to the ones on the Mithril being that they're part elastic and velcro. The cuff-tabs are laminated with the velcro stitched on to the inner laminate. Pretty cool way to do it, since it keeps all the stitching hidden.

I plan on getting quite a bit of use out of this jacket, all year round and it was specifically purchased as a shell I can use year round, due to it's light weight and ease of packing. Also, unlike my previous lightweight shell, a Mountain Hardwear Epic, the inside of the jacket won't stick to my skin when I sweat on it.

Now, the color I bought is the “Sandstone”. It is a far nicer color in real life than it is in the picture on OR's website. The “Sandstone” color on the website looks like a pale tan. In reality it's a lot more Olive Drab, albeit a light shade of OD. Hard to explain but it's a greenish, darker tan than it is in the picture. At any rate, I like it a lot more than the one in the web pictures.

There are a couple of things I don't care for though. This is pretty much entirely related to the pockets and their locations. The handwarmer pockets are set low, almost right at the hem. I don't care for this, as they get in the way when you wear a pack with a waistbelt. Since I'd like to use this for hiking and such, as well as daily wear while commuting to work, this means that if I'm wearing a pack, I'm not likely to ever put anything in these pockets. And since the interior zippered pocket is in the same location on the inside of the right pocket, that rules out that one too. Chest-high pockets are a far better choice in general for over-all utility and I wish they'd change that, especially for something that is described as being an “all-mountain package”.

The last thing is the napoleon pocket. I'd be careful about putting any thing in that pocket that can't survive getting wet. I used it a couple of times while riding my mountainbike to and from work in hard rain. I ended up with one pretty wet, but amazingly ok, iPod on one occasion; and some wet dollar bills another time. The shell kept out the elements just fine otherwise. And since the pocket itself doesn't compromise the integrity of the shell, no water seeped inside the shell itself from that pocket. The zipper appears to be intact, there's a nice little zipper garage, but it just looks to me as if that particular zipper isn't entirely waterproof.

Other than those two things, the Elixir seems very well-constructed and despite the pocket issues, I am fully expecting to get a lot of use out of this jacket. All the stitching is neatly done and the seam-taping is clean as well. If the pocket locations aren't an issue for you, I can definitely recommend it if you're looking for a capable and lightweight shell.

Here's the link to the page at OR.

Elixir Jacket

I would like to thank Dave and Michele at OR for taking care of me.