Chill-Its Unisex Premium FR Phase Change Cooling Vest with Rechargeable Ice Packs

The cooling vest. As much as I wanted it to work well for my purpose, it was so so. That being said, I selected this for testing under a heavy bite suit for dog training. For this it was OK. It did succeed in keeping the torso cool, but it did nothing for the arms and legs and over all cooling under the suit. To be perfectly fair, it wasn't designed for this purpose, so I didn't grade it based only on this. My second test was in a hot kitchen working behind the line, running grills, ovens and deep fryers. Here the vest works better. The 2 holders on the front work great for holding a thermometer and pen, 2 essential tools in a kitchen. The 3rd area I tested this was underneath my kevlar vest. Here it worked fairly well also, but it adds a lot of bulk to the uniform. Additionally, in my case, my vest is under my over-shirt, making it more difficult to remove once it thaws.The vest lives up to its hype about recharging. It does recharge in a cooler of ice, and the freezer as well. But, be aware that you will want to keep it flat if you allow it to freeze all the way. It will freeze solid and become in-flexible if allowed to freeze solid.The vest is fairly comfortable to wear, as the cotton material is soft and the elastic bands allow fit adjustments, but it does add just under 10 pounds of extra weight. Cleaning is a breeze, I just throw the cover in the washer and air dry mine, and the packs I rinse off or use a very mild soap to clean it. (I use castile soap).Cooling effects.............3.5Pack recharge..............5Ease of cleaning...........5Comfort.......................4

The vest really works to keep me cool while I am working on the highway and in 98 degree heat. I only have two suggestions. First, make the vest in a hi-vis yellow, the orange vest by it's self, I am unable to wear without another yellow vest over the top on the highway because their is orange cones on the highway that we use for traffic and in our state you can't wear orange on the highway and they don't want you looking like a cone. Second, the size I have is a L/XL. Because the inserts take up a lot of room it would be nice to have some attached straps that I could use to make the sides not as tight with the current velcro or make the current straps a little longer for us big guys. Not sure if they make a XXL but most construction outdoors workers are big guys.