TGO Midweight LS Zip Neck

Outdoor companies with half-an-eye on the green dollar are striving to make their products appear more environmentally sustainable than their competitors’, hence a wave of goods whose ingredients include coconut or bamboo by-products, recycled plastic bottles and the like.

Though the results are often commendable, I find there’s still nothing quite like merino wool for baselayers, especially when it comes to what gets you thrown out of bars – the smell.

Cocona, though, is darned good. This synthetic fabric relies on fusing activated carbon (produced by incinerating waste coconut shells at 1600oC) with polyester Polartec to create a fabric that dries very quickly and which can be worn for several days before it begins to pong.

Cocona has been used by Marmot in this long-sleeve zip-neck top which has proved to be comfortable, a good fit even over my KitKat-laden belly and excellent in terms of performance.

The inner face of the fabric is fleecy-soft and gentle against the body, though the rougher outer has snagged on my beard more than once. Cocona contains no chemical anti-microbials which might wash out, so in theory its moisture-moving, temperature-regulating properties should last for the garment’s lifetime.

I wore this shirt for the three days and two nights of the Three Peaks trip and a subsequent sniff test could barely tell that it had been worn. Previously I’d worn it for up to five days on the trot with similarly pleasant results. I haven’t even been kicked out of the pub.