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The Bottom Line: A well-built, warm, light, and compact offering in the down blanket market at a lower price point than the competitors. If you are looking to save money and get a solid blanket for all uses, Wild Breed is highly recommended.
Using the Wild Breed blanket at Blue Lagoon in Iceland while sitting on sharp rocks. Jason Leach.
I will get my biggest complaint out of the way first: As a photographer, I wish this blanket came in brighter colors so it would "pop" more in photos. That aside, if you are a small company and decided to forego color options to instead focus on building a quality product, I would take that any day. Wild Breed Equipment appears to have taken this approach, and I am impressed!
The blanket shell is made from 20 denier ripstop nylon with a water repellant treatment. This means it will shed light rain, shrug its shoulders at dirt, laugh at pet hair, and survive scrapes along the way. I have used the blanket for nightly sleeps at home, a travel blanket on road and air trips, and my sleep system while living in a van for a week traveling around Iceland. It has been stolen by our dog numerous times, dropped, kicked, shoved into all sorts of spaces, and even used while sitting on sharp rocks. The shell is still in great shape, showing little to no signs of wear. The stitching has shown no signs of pulling or loose ends across the entire blanket.
The premium down 650 fill is the star of the show, allowing the twin-sized blanket to compress down comfortably to fit inside its included stuff sack. The company ships the product nicely packed and rolled in the stuff sack, showing how small it can get (4 x 7 in.), but I was never able to pack it that small again. Regardless, it still is small enough for me to not think twice about throwing it in my backpack to use as a travel pillow (in the stuff sack) or as intended.
Nightly use at home usually had me tossing the blanket off toward the middle of the night. I tend to sleep warm and found it to be a tad too warm for my tastes. Other times it just fell off entirely; I did not notice, which I attribute to how light the blanket is. For a personal nightly sleeper, I prefer something with a bit more weight and less warmth, but if you sleep cold and value multi-use items then you might find a win here!
For travel, camping, and general outdoor use, this blanket shines. The company claims optimal temperatures down to 35 degrees, which I found to be accurate while winter van camping in Iceland. Most nights were in the low 30s, and with a base layer on I was perfectly comfortable under the blanket. My fiancée tends to run cold and loved to just throw the blanket over herself while we drove to our next destination or walked around outside. It might not be warm enough to sleep with at night, but she was quick to grab it when we stepped out of the van to see the Northern Lights.
Wild Breed does state that their down is sustainably sourced and treated. As someone who has become increasingly aware of the environmental impact of outdoor gear production and use, I appreciated company transparency but would love to see more about this on their website.
You certainly could spend more money on a similar blanket from more known brands, but for the budget-minded crowd looking for a versatile travel blanket that could easily double as a lightweight sleeping quilt, Wild Breed Equipment produces a high quality down blanket at a $99 price point. I will be packing this on all my upcoming travel and backpacking trips this spring and summer.
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