Best Running Rain Jacket

Best Eco-Friendly Running Rain Jacket The Flight jacket isn’t the lightest jacket I tested. It’s a three-layer jacket, as compared with the lighter two- or two-and-a-half-layer jackets like the Marmot Bantamweight, which is still a great pick. It’s still breathable, without a ton of vents and perforations that let rain or cold air inside. The North Face’s Futurelight fabric was developed from nanospinning techniques originally used in water-filtration systems and smartphone electronics casings. The webs are waterproof and perfluorocarbon-free.

The Flight Jacket has standard running-jacket features, like an adjustable hood, stash pocket, and an elasticized waistband and cuffs. But it’s soft and flexible enough to do away with many of the darts and gussets that jacket manufacturers use to give the wearer more range of motion. The North Face also devised a soft, thin seam tape to keep water out of the jacket’s vulnerable points.

Most Eco-Friendly Rain Jacket

Best Eco-Friendly Running Rain Jacket Earlier this year, I recommended Fjällraven’s Keb Eco Shell because the company uses a proprietary PFC-free spray as a waterproofing agent. But the best rain jacket is one that you won’t have to treat or replace, and so far the Marmot Eclipse with EVODry has held up. It rains a lot here in Portland. In between biking my kids to school, walking my dog, and waiting sullenly for sushi food carts to open, I usually wear off the DWR on a rain jacket in about a year. That isn’t the case with the Eclipse; water is still beading on the surface after months of wear. Marmot’s EVODry fabric uses a technology called AquaVent, which uses high-pressure gas to press water repellents directly into the jacket’s fibers, where it is thermally polymerized into place. In addition to being more durable, it also doesn’t produce a lot of toxic wastewater as a byproduct, and it’s a lot easier to clean.