As someone who has spent quite a few hours shivering on river banks after kayaking waiting for the support vehicles to arrive, after scuba diving waiting for the boat to take me to shore, or just in a field after running a muddy wet cross country cheering on the rest of my team mates, the thought of a reusable hand warmer is a great idea.

I was looking forward to try the warmer even though the press release sounded like it had been written by someone who had never experienced the need for one:

‘The Hand Warmer is a great accessory if you’re outdoors a lot of the time – we all know that even in the hottest summer it can get cold at night… This would be perfect keeping you warm in your caravan, as well as being an ideal accompaniment to take with you to the footballing terraces when the weather turns sour. It is also ideal for those taking part in outdoor sports and want to warm up/down’.

My experiences of hot summers are that even in the evenings I’ve no need for a hand warmer as I’ve got a cold drink in my hand; caravans have heaters and if you are cold you have your hands round a mug of coffee or you have a hot water bottle; the people who would use one on a football terrace are the sort who bring a flask of tea with them anyway and for the rest of us can you imagine being with your mates and getting your hand warmer out?  And finally if you take part in outdoor sports you warm up and down by moving you whole body and getting blood flowing though your muscles not holding a hand warmer.

In spite of this I was keen to try it as it is made by Zippo, a worldwide trusted and recognized brand, and unlike other types of heat packs that either only last for 40 minutes, require heating in a microwave, or can only be used once, this is a new liquid-fuel warmer. The Zippo Hand Warmer claims it can produce more than ten times the heat of traditional warmers and lasts up to 12 hours on just 0.4 ounces of Zippo’s Premium Lighter Fluid.

To see how easy it was to use the hand warmer watch the video below. The Zippo Hand Warmer also comes complete with a can of lighter fluid, and using the filling cup you can fill the warmer to work for either 6 or 12 hours. After lighting the platinum-catalyzed glass fiber burner, heat is produced without a flame. It recommends you put it straight away into the warming bag included and you really need to as quickly it felt as hot as a boiled kettle if you touched the warmer directly. After about 8 hours it had cooled so I could hold it without the bag but after giving it a shake it immediately reheated to the initial temperature and lasted for a further 4 hours.

After road testing the hand warmer I appreciated why the press release was a bit vague on where or when you could use it:

  • It is slimline, about the size of an iPhone or Blackberry, so fits easily into pockets but you probably want to buy two as it’s not something you would stand about wrapping you hands round.
  • If you are going to use it when you watch an outdoor sporting event or on a summer evening out then you can’t be spontaneous when you want to use it as you wouldn’t want to carry lighter fluid around with you so you have to fill it up before hand which also means you have to estimate how long you will need it for as once it’s lit you can’t turn it off.
  • After watersports would be when I would find it the most useful, but it’s not a very waterproof product as you wouldn’t want to get the glass fiber burner wet by taking it with you on the water.

I feel that the hand warmer is a really useful product. It is compact, it maintains a high constant heat for a long time, it’s virtually odourless and it’s reusable and at around £20 is affordable. I just don’t know exactly which outdoor activities it is most suitable for.

However, the best use for the warmer that I found though was not for using as a hand warmer but as a heat pack for muscles. Although heat should not be applied in the first 24 hours following an injury, heat application can increase blood flow and promote healing in an injured area.

Heat is also useful to increase muscle temperature and if it’s used before stretching exercises, can increase extensibility of connective tissue such as tendons, ligaments and muscles, significantly increasing flexibility.

Hot water bottles and microwaveable heat packs are great but they are large and quite inconvenient also they need to be regularly re-heated. This hand warmer though was the perfect size to hold against specific muscles or joints and slipping it down some tubigrip round my arm or leg kept it in place even when I was moving about.

Overall I can’t fault the Zippo Hand Warmer for the quality of the product and it performs exactly as it is described, my only problem is recommending when it could be of most use.

Zippo hand warmers are available on eBay, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and leading outdoor stores.

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