NinePlus Women's Wetsuit Review: Catsuit 2009
Alright, this has nothing to do with photography, but I had a hard time finding a review of this wetsuit so I thought I'd post this in case anyone else is looking for it. I'll try to keep it brief:
During my first surf, I gave the suit a 7 out 0f 10. It felt awesome, arms and chest were SO warm they didn't even feel wet. The wool that lines the inside of this suit is amazing, and you can tell it's made from good neoprene. After the first session, my only gripes were the collar was really irritating my neck, it letting some water in down my back, and it was REALLY (I mean REALLY) hard to get out of. I attributed all of that to needing to break in the new suit and figured it'd be fine by a couple of surfs.
But, by my third session, there was so much water flooding in through the neck I had a pool of it down my back and around my stomach between waves. When I moved my leg to get myself turned around, water flushed up the leg. Turning turtle caused water to flood in through both arms.
Ultimately, I returned the suit (thank you Ken at Icons of Surf for being so understanding and customer-service oriented. this surf shop ROCKS) because I can't justify spending $300 on something that lets in that much water.
The wetsuit looks super hot. I got lots of compliments on that. But this suit is for someone with a thicker neck than mine, or something... I'm gonna have to stick with a mainstream suit for now. The Patagonia suit would have been another alternative if the neck didn't feel like choke-hold. Hopefully this review is useful to someone out there. Oh, here is the NinePlus description of the suit, FYI.
UPDATE March 2009: I ended up with the women's Billabong Solution Gold 3/2 - this is by far the best wetsuit I've ever owned (compared to Roxy, O'Neill, 9plus & RipCurl). I love it!
During my first surf, I gave the suit a 7 out 0f 10. It felt awesome, arms and chest were SO warm they didn't even feel wet. The wool that lines the inside of this suit is amazing, and you can tell it's made from good neoprene. After the first session, my only gripes were the collar was really irritating my neck, it letting some water in down my back, and it was REALLY (I mean REALLY) hard to get out of. I attributed all of that to needing to break in the new suit and figured it'd be fine by a couple of surfs.
But, by my third session, there was so much water flooding in through the neck I had a pool of it down my back and around my stomach between waves. When I moved my leg to get myself turned around, water flushed up the leg. Turning turtle caused water to flood in through both arms.
Ultimately, I returned the suit (thank you Ken at Icons of Surf for being so understanding and customer-service oriented. this surf shop ROCKS) because I can't justify spending $300 on something that lets in that much water.
The wetsuit looks super hot. I got lots of compliments on that. But this suit is for someone with a thicker neck than mine, or something... I'm gonna have to stick with a mainstream suit for now. The Patagonia suit would have been another alternative if the neck didn't feel like choke-hold. Hopefully this review is useful to someone out there. Oh, here is the NinePlus description of the suit, FYI.
UPDATE March 2009: I ended up with the women's Billabong Solution Gold 3/2 - this is by far the best wetsuit I've ever owned (compared to Roxy, O'Neill, 9plus & RipCurl). I love it!
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