A Construction Worker Reveals What 22 Winters Taught Him About Keeping His Face From Falling Apart on the Job

★★★★★ 9,600+ Reviews | 4.8 Average Rating

By Ray Sandoval, Construction Foreman · Cold Gear Review · 7 min read · ★★★★★

I have been doing concrete for 22 years. Chicago winters.

The kind of cold where your face stops being part of your body by 8 AM and doesn't come back until you are in the truck with the heat on.

I am not writing this to complain. I am writing this because I spent 22 years handling it the wrong way, and my wife fixed it in 10 minutes on her phone one night while I was asleep.

If you work outside in the winter, you already know what I am about to describe. I am not going to explain it to you. I am just going to say it, and you are going to nod, because you have lived it.

22 Years of the Same Morning Routine

Every morning. November through March. Same thing.

Truck running. Dome light on. Pull the Carhartt beanie down to my ears. Pull the gaiter up over my nose. Open the center console, find the Aquaphor, smear it across both cheekbones in the dark. Check the rearview mirror. Adjust. Adjust again.

Four minutes. Every single morning. For 22 years.

By 8 AM the gaiter would slide down to my chin. I would pull it back up. It would slide. I would pull it. All day. Every day.

By lunch my cheekbones were raw. By 5 PM the skin was cracked. By the time I walked through my front door, my wife Diane had already set the lotion on the counter because she knew what my face would look like before I got home.

She stopped saying anything about it around year six. Not because it got better. Because she ran out of ways to say the same thing.

My grandson Mateo is five. Last winter he grabbed my face with both hands the way kids do. He pulled back and said, "Abuelo, why do your cheeks feel like rocks?"

I laughed it off.

I thought about it for three days.

What Changed After 22 Years

My wife Diane ordered something one night in November without telling me. I came home and there was a package on the kitchen counter. She just said, "Try it tomorrow. If you don't like it I will return it."

I did not ask what it was. I did not look it up. I put it on the next morning at 5:30 in the dark, same way I put on everything else. Except this time there was only one thing to put on.

One piece. Went over my head and covered everything. My ears, my face, my neck, all connected. Thick fleece on the inside, soft, not the thin stuff from the gas station. A drawstring that tightened around my face so nothing could get in. And a face panel that dropped down when I needed to talk to my crew and went right back up.

I put my hard hat on over it. It sat flat. No bunching. No pushing the hat up.

I walked onto the site. Same wind. Same Chicago January.

I forgot about my face.

That does not happen in January in Chicago. You do not forget about your face. You are always adjusting something. Pulling something up. Rubbing your cheekbones at break. You are always aware of it.

I forgot about it. For 11 hours.

At the end of the shift I sat in my truck and touched my face. Warm. Dry. Not cracked. Not raw. I looked in the mirror and my face looked like I had been inside all day.

I called Diane. I said, "It worked."

She said, "I know. I read the reviews."

What It Actually Does

I am going to tell you exactly what this thing is. No pitch. No explanation about why other gear fails. Just what it does.

It is a one piece fleece hood that covers your head, your ears, your face, and your neck. All connected. Nothing separate. Nothing to layer. Nothing to adjust.

The inside is lined with plush thickened fleece. Not thin polyester. The kind of fleece where you put it on and your skin immediately feels warm. Diane touched it before I did and said it was softer than her pillowcase.

There is a drawstring that tightens around your face opening. You pull it and the wind cannot get in. The seal is complete.

There is a face panel that drops down. Need to talk to your foreman? Drop it. Need water? Drop it. Done? Pull it back up. One second. You do not take the whole thing off.

It fits under a hard hat. That is the part I did not believe until I wore it. The fleece compresses just enough to sit flat under the shell.

Here is what other buyers say about it:

What Other Workers Are Saying

One Last Thing

I am not writing this to sell you anything. I am writing this because I spent 22 years doing it the hard way and my wife found the fix in 10 minutes on her phone. She still brings it up. Regularly.

Three guys on my crew ordered one after the first week. Their wives called Diane. She keeps count. She is at eleven now and she has started saying "you're welcome" to women she has never met.

Here is what I know after 22 winters pouring concrete in Chicago.

The cold is not going to change. The wind is not going to change. The shifts are not going to get shorter. The only thing that changes is what you put on your face before you walk out the door.

For 22 years I put on three things that did not work together. Now I put on one thing that covers everything. That is the whole difference. That is the whole story.

My grandson Mateo grabbed my face last Sunday. Both hands. The way he always does.

He did not pull away. He did not say my cheeks feel like rocks. He just held on.

He held on for a long time.

That is worth more than anything I could write here.