why no green color?!
The only complaint I have about the Whippy is they ought to offer an olive green or army green. They offer several shades of grey and black, none of which are useful to me. Since they do offer an ok khaki (too liight) they should offer an army green too. The Whippy elastic belt is the best of all the stretch belts I've tried--about 10 different belts from 6 different belt makers on Amazon. I tried all the stretch belts here that are cheaper, and all the ones that are more expensive. This Whippy performed best. I'm writing this review only because I tried all the others and was surprised this one came to the top. 1. Its best quality is the substantial strap material they use that stays thick and substantial as it elongates. Some of the belts including expensive ones got very thin as they stretched out. The Whippy strap material also has a dense twill finish that looks good, displays fabric color well, and seems durable. Some of the belts, even expensive ones, have a fuzzy finish that looks cheap and insubstantial even before developing pills quickly with use. 2. The Whippy also stretches further than all the other elastic stretch belts I tried, but retains the same tension throughout this longer stretch. Whereas some of the other belts stretched only an inch or so then stopped hard. Some seemed weak with poor tension once stretched. Some seemed stiff and unyielding once stretched out. The Whippy stayed resilient and stretchy-firm at full elongation.) 3. As a result, the Whippy strap material has the most comfortable dynamic stretch while you're wearing it. I adjust it so it is slightly stretched when buckled, then when I move it stretches more or rebounds as necessary as I move about, bend over to pick something up, sit, stand up, go walking. Totally different feel than wearing a relatively non-yielding fabric or leather belt. Some other stretch elastic belts I tried would feel very tight as I moved and the belt stretched only a little to accommodate while getting too tight, and some wouldn't rebound but would sag after stretching. The Whippy feels like it moves and breaths while you wear it, never feeling too tight or too loose. In the end, this is the reason to wear a stretch belt, and it's the quality of the elastic strap material the makes all the difference. I saw no correlation between belt expense and strap elongation quality. The second best elongation quality strap was a $9.99 stretch belt, and the third best was the $35 Arcade A2 Adventure belt. Not as good strapping material as the Whippy but ok. (The $40 Arcade Utility belt stretch fabric was much worse. The stiffness of the stretch was ok, but there was so little elongation before a hard stop and the material became thin when stretched. Not good.) 4. The buckle of the Whippy is fine. It's durable enough, easy enough to buckle up, weighs very little. The whole belt is only 68 grams. The buckle was my main hesitation of the plastic claps TSA belts, but my doubts were unfounded. I've had no problems. The male insert of the Whippy buckle has complicated looking extensions that have to fit into the slender receiver side of the buckle, but in practice it's easy to line everything up. Seems very durable. The Whippy buckle insert looks like the original Arcade buckle, and Arcade may have had the same doubts about it I did. They redesigned their Gen 2 Adventure A2 belt and their Utility belt with an A-shaped angle-pointed male insert that looks like it would be easier to buckle and perhaps more durable. In practice, side-to-side, the later buckle design is no easier to snap together than the Whippy, and certainly no more impervious to mishandling or breaking. I like the looks of Arcade's Gen 2 adventure A2 buckle more than the Whippy but the Whippy strap material is much better than the Arcade A2 strap, plus the Arcade A2 Adventure costs more than twice as much. I also like the Arcade A2 for the olive green color they offer (and the Arcade Utility belts have good colors too), but then I'd be stuck with inferior strap material in a better color. Not a good trade off. 5. Finally, the Whippy buckle was easy to thread through belt loops that were just wide enough for a 1.5"/38mm belt. Thread the female receiver side of the buckle through, though. Some stretch belts' fatter or taller buckles make this difficult. *NB: worth noting that elastic (the real stuff) relaxed a lot when wet, so if you're going to use an elastic stretch belt in the rain, or swim with it, or soak it with sweat while working on on patrol, then you may have to re-adjust it tighter. Read more
