Otter Wax Fabric Wax Bar | Large Bar | Durable Rain Protection | Made in the USA | Waterproof Canvas, Shoes, Hats, Jacket, Bags, Outdoor Gear, Clothing | All-Natural & Effective Beeswax Waterproofer

If you follow the instructions on the packaging, then the wax will ruin whatever article of clothing you put it on. The notion that smearing a thick coating of beeswax on something like a duck canvas coat, letting it cure for a day, and then wearing it...is idiotic. If you like getting everything sticky your coats touches, then by all means follow the instructions on the box. If you like a shiny, streaky finish on your clothing, then by all means follow the instructions on the box. If you like white bits of dried wax to leave smudges all over your other clothes, then by all means follow the instructions on the box.Now that we've covered how NOT to use this product, let's get down to why this stuff is a great and necessary purchase. Animal fibers, such as wool, and manufactured fabrics like polyester are water repellant and quick drying. Cotton is not and is a huge and literally heavy pain if it gets wet. Otter Wax is designed to add a layer of water repellant to cotton clothing. Here's how you should apply the wax to achieve this effect. I used it on a coat, so that will be my point of reference.Here's what you'll need:-Otter Wax-Wagner 0503008 HT1000 1,200-watt Heat Gun or a hair dryer. The heat gun works much more quickly.-A king sized pillow case that you have no intention of using on a pillow ever again. King Pure-Cotton Pillow Case Covers - (2-Pack, each 20 inches x 40 inches, White) 100% Cotton for Maximum Softness and Easy Care, Elegant Double-Stitched Tailoring - By Utopia Bedding are cheap and will do the job just fine.1) Make sure the article to which you're applying the wax is both clean and bone-dry. I cannot overemphasize this. If the cotton is in any way wet the wax will not stick to the fabric.2) Apply the wax using short and firm strokes to the entire article of clothing. Make sure to cover every crevice, seam, and around every button. The coat should have a chalky-white look to it.3) Hang the article of clothing to dry. You should give it 24 hours.4) Put the article of clothing in the pillow case, tie the case shut, and throw the clothing into the dryer for about an hour on medium heat. This will melt much of the wax into the item and save you some work. When you remove the clothing from the dryer it will have a distressed look and still be a bit waxy.5) With slow back and forth swipes, use the heat gun to melt the remaining wax. You'll see the white residue liquefy and absorb into the cotton. Don't worry if there are patches of what look like grease stains after the wax melts. This is just a patch where you applied slightly more wax than the surrounding area. It will fade over time.6) Hang the item for another 24 hours. This last bit of drying time is critical. It allows the wax to set. If you wear the article immediately the distressed white patches will form at, for example, the elbow of your coat. The bending motion will "wring" the wax out of the fibers.7) You should follow these steps about once per year.And there you have it. Water will bead right off your clothing. As a personal opinion, I wouldn't recommend using this on pants. The near constant friction would wring or scrape away the wax too quickly to make the whole application process worth it.

Otter Wax worked really well. I have waxed a shoulder bag and a jacket and still have about half of the bar left. To test them I held the jacket under the shower and it is definitely very water proof. It didnt change the look of the bag or jacket as much as I thought it would. The material looks a tiny bit darker and in some light is a little bit shinny but other than that I dont really notice it. The wax has almost no smell and is non-toxic which makes it great to work with. I have used paraffin waxes before that smelled awful and kept getting worse with age.Its really easy to do if a little time consuming. You really need to take your time and get all the seams and cracks . In the instructions they say to just rub the wax on then smooth it with your fingers. I would really recommend using a hair dryer to melt the wax after you rub it onto the cloth. This seemed to not only make the cotton absorb the wax a bit better but made it look much better too. Much more of a 'factory waxed' look. You can still use your fingers to spread out any parts that look uneven, just be careful because the wax can get really hot. I am guessing this is why they dont recommend this in the official instructions.I find myself wandering around the house now looking for more things to wax. This wax turned out great. Im definitely going to pick up more so that I can keep my stuff waxed and waterproof.

I put this on a light weight cotton trucker jacket that I have. My desire was to have a waterproof jacket that looked and would age something like a Barbour jacket. I found the results you will get will depend on how much work you put into applying the product. And it was a lot of work. Hours of work. I wanted to give up several times, but I'm to ocd to start something and stop, so I soldiered on. Here is how I went about it and the results I achieved:I put on a heavy coat of wax (probably to heavy) section by section on the jacket. It was kind of like coloring with a crayon actually. As I did so I would use my fingers to work the product into the fabric, but it soon became evident that this was going to take FOREVER and I lost patience rubbing it in like I was. So I used a hair dryer. But it didn't seem to work so well and it was going to take just as much time. So, I figured that I would work the wax into the material by how much pressure I used while applying (which is probably why it was to heavy of an application). If I would have stopped there I was have rated the product at 2 stars because of how much of a pain in the butt is was to apply and what it looked like. The wax on my jacket was white, dull, chalkey, and sticky. Not pretty.But then I had a stroke of common sense. I polish my boots and shoes with a horse hair brush, and shoe polish has a lot of wax in it, so why not do the same with my jacket?After letting the wax cure for a couple days, I went at it with the stiff horse hair brush. I mean really went at it. The results were awesome. All the white chalkiness and stickiness disapeard and left a beautiful sheen on the jacket. I wore it out last night and my wife kept commenting on how nice it looked. I can already tell its going to age beautifully. It was still a bit tackey but I'm fairly sure that will go away over time with wear. Also it does leave a little bit of wax on whatever you're pressing up against, but I think this was because of my over application and the tackiness of the wax, and should eventually stop.I did a a waterproof test spraying the jacket with squirt bottle and water beaded right off.Last thought; the product definitely has an odor, which I would decribe to be a pleasant citrus, pine, earthy, waxy scent.