Key takeaways
- The Nikwax Tech Wash and TX.Direct twin pack works out at about £3.30 a garment. It was £33.00 on Amazon UK on 30 September 2026, against £38.99 for the same two litres bought separately.
- Grangers Wash + Repel costs £3.31 a garment in product, and its label requires heat activation, so a dryer run goes on top of that.
- Electricity is 26.32p a kWh from 1 October 2026 under the Ofgem cap, so a 45 minute low-heat cycle on a 2.5kW dryer costs about 49p.
- From 10 October 2026 an EU restriction on PFHxA applies in Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain, because Northern Ireland stays inside EU REACH and Great Britain does not.
Reproofing season arrives on the Amazon UK charts before it arrives on the weather forecast. On 30 September 2026 the Nikwax Hardshell Cleaning and Waterproofing Duo-Pack sat at number 14 in the whole Sports and Outdoors best sellers list, and at number 1 in Waterproofing and Cleaning. The top dozen in that subcategory is almost entirely Nikwax, Grangers and Scotchgard. People are digging last winter’s coat out of the cupboard, finding the shoulders wet through, and buying a bottle rather than a new jacket.
That is usually the right call. A reproof costs a few pounds. A replacement shell costs three figures. What almost nobody works out is the true cost of the reproof, because half of these products need a tumble dryer cycle to work and half do not, and a dryer cycle is not free. We priced six of them on the day, took the dosage from each manufacturer’s own instructions, and did the division.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (paid link)
The reproofing rule that splits the UK on 10 October
Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/2462 amended Annex XVII of EU REACH. From 10 October 2026, PFHxA, its salts and PFHxA-related substances cannot be placed on the market or used at 25 parts per billion or above (1,000 ppb for the related substances) in a list of things that includes “mixtures for the general public”, and textiles in clothing for the general public. A waterproofing spray or a wash-in proofer sold to you in a shop is a mixture for the general public.
Here is the part that matters if you live in the UK. Northern Ireland remains inside the EU chemicals system. The Health and Safety Executive’s own guidance says Northern Ireland “will remain part of EU regulatory systems for chemicals”, and that Northern Ireland businesses retain their current EU REACH status and obligations. Great Britain runs UK REACH separately, and Great Britain has not restricted this.
Defra’s PFAS Plan, updated 17 August 2026, shows how early the Great Britain work is. Action 3.18 is to “Consider consumer articles as part of any work to consider PFAS restrictions under UK REACH”. Action 3.19 is to “Work to consider potential restrictions or regulatory measures on PFAS use in specific consumer product groups”. Those are both at the considering stage. Nothing is in force.
So from 10 October 2026, a bottle that breaches the limit can no longer be put on the market for the public in Belfast, and can still be sold in Birmingham. None of that is an accusation against a product on this page. It is a gap in the rules, and it leaves the checking with you.
The practical version is simple. A product that states PFC-free on the pack is outside the restriction by definition, because PFHxA is a fluorinated compound. Nikwax’s own page for TX.Direct Spray On says “PFC and aerosol free”. The Amazon listing for Nikwax Tech Wash says PFAS free, the TX.Direct Spray On listing says the same, and Grangers Wash + Repel says PFC free in so many words. The Fabsil Gold listing and the Nikwax twin pack listing say nothing about it. Where a listing says nothing about it, that silence tells you nothing either way, and the only way to find out is to ask the manufacturer.
What a reproof actually costs
Two numbers decide this: the price of the bottle and the dose the maker tells you to use. Everything else is arithmetic.
Grangers Wash + Repel Clothing 2 in 1 says to add two 50ml capfuls per garment, so 100ml a coat. The 300ml bottle was £9.93, which is £3.31 a garment and three garments a bottle.
The Nikwax route is two stages. Tech Wash says 150ml in medium or hard water areas for one or two items. TX.Direct Wash-In says 100ml per garment. The twin pack gives you a litre of each for £33.00, and the TX.Direct is the bottle that runs out first, at ten garments. That is about £3.30 a garment, and it undercuts buying the two litres separately, which came to £38.99 on the same day.
Then the dryer. Grangers Wash + Repel states plainly that heat activation is required, and suggests a low to medium tumble dry, an iron or a hairdryer. Nikwax says the opposite for TX.Direct: treated clothing “needs no heat to develop Durable Water Repellency”, and tumble drying is optional. Assume a 2.5kW condenser dryer on a 45 minute low-heat cycle. That is 1.9 kWh, and at 26.32p a kWh it costs about 49p. Those are our assumptions about the machine, not measurements, and a bigger load spreads that 49p across more garments. The unit rate is not an assumption: Ofgem’s cap sets electricity at 26.32p a kWh from 1 October to 31 December 2026, with a 54.83p daily standing charge, and there is no VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Run one coat at a time and the cheaper bottle stops being the cheaper bottle. £3.31 plus 49p is £3.80, against £3.30 with no dryer at all. It is a small gap, and it goes the other way if you do three coats in one load. It is still the sort of thing a roundup should tell you, given the Energy Saving Trust puts washing machines, dishwashers and tumble dryers at 14 per cent of a typical energy bill.
The chart’s number one is also the dearest of the three per garment. The Nikwax duo-pack sitting at the top of the Waterproofing and Cleaning list on 30 September 2026 was £14.90 for 300ml of Tech Wash and 300ml of TX.Direct. Nikwax states 100ml a garment, so that small TX.Direct bottle does three coats, which works out at about £4.97 each. The litre twin pack costs more than twice as much up front and still comes in lower per coat. Chart position on its own will never tell you that.
How we picked these
We read the Amazon UK Waterproofing and Cleaning best sellers chart on 30 September 2026 and took our shortlist from the top of it, then checked every one on its own product page for price and stock. We chose six with genuinely different jobs rather than six versions of the same bottle, and we left out anything we could not price on the day. Dosage comes from the manufacturer’s stated instructions, either on the listing or on the brand’s own site. Cost per garment is bottle price divided by stated dose. We do not test.
| Product | Best for | Price, 30 Sep 2026 | Chart rank | Heat activation | PFC or PFAS free on the listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grangers Wash + Repel 2 in 1, 300ml | One cycle, start to finish | £9.93 | 6 | Required | Yes, PFC free |
| Nikwax Tech Wash + TX.Direct twin pack | Lowest cost per garment | £33.00 | 7 | Not needed | Listing does not say |
| Nikwax TX.Direct Spray-On, 500ml | Patching a tired shell | £15.00 | 2 | Not needed | Yes, PFAS free |
| Nikwax Down Wash + Down Proof twin pack | Down jackets and sleeping bags | £15.40 | 10 | Listing does not say | Listing does not say |
| Grangers Fabsil Gold, 1 litre | Tents and awnings | £14.95 | 15 | Listing does not say | Listing does not say |
| Grangers Wax Cotton Dressing, 180g | Waxed cotton coats | £10.49 | 12 | Warmth helps it soak in | Listing does not say |
The six we would buy
Grangers Wash + Repel Clothing 2 in 1, 300ml
£9.93 on 30 September 2026 · number 6 in the chart · £3.31 a garment in product
One bottle, one wash, clean and reproofed at the end of it. You add two 50ml capfuls per garment to the machine and the job is done in a single cycle instead of two, which is the whole point of it. At three garments a bottle it is the cheapest way in if you only have one coat to sort out.
The catch: the label says heat activation is required, so you have to tumble dry it on low or go over it with an iron or a hairdryer. Budget about 49p for the dryer run on our stated assumptions, which wipes out most of the price advantage over the Nikwax pack if you are only doing one coat.
Nikwax Tech Wash 1L and TX.Direct 1L twin pack
£33.00 on 30 September 2026 · number 7 in the chart · about £3.30 a garment
Two litres, two stages, roughly ten garments before the TX.Direct runs out. Buying the two bottles on their own came to £38.99 on the same day, so the pack saved £5.99. Nikwax says the treatment needs no heat to develop its water repellency, so there is no dryer cycle to pay for and no risk of cooking a taped seam.
The catch: £33.00 up front is a lot to spend on a single coat, and it is two full wash cycles per job rather than one. This only pays off if you have a few things to do, or you expect to do it again next autumn.
Nikwax TX.Direct Spray-On, 500ml
£15.00 on 30 September 2026 · number 2 in the chart
Sometimes only the shoulders and the forearms have given up, and the rest of the coat is fine. A spray-on lets you treat those areas without putting proofer through the whole garment, and it suits shells with a wicking liner you would rather leave alone. Nikwax says to spray from 15cm onto a clean, wet item, wait five minutes, then wipe off the surplus. No heat needed, and the page states it is PFC and aerosol free.
The catch: Nikwax does not publish a coverage figure for the spray, so you cannot work out a cost per jacket before you buy it the way you can with the wash-in. You find out how far 500ml goes by using it.
Nikwax Down Wash Direct and Down Proof twin pack
£15.40 on 30 September 2026 · number 10 in the chart
Down is a different problem. A normal detergent strips the natural oils out of the feathers and the filling clumps, so a down jacket that has gone flat and damp needs a cleaner made for it and then a proofer on top. This pack is the cheapest way to get both, and it covers sleeping bags as well as jackets.
The catch: the listing does not state a dose or a PFC-free claim, so you cannot price it per garment the way you can with the Tech Wash pack. Drying is also the slow part with down, and that is hours in a dryer rather than one 45 minute cycle.
Grangers Fabsil Gold silicone concentrate, 1 litre
£14.95 on 30 September 2026 · number 15 in the chart
Clothing proofers are sold in 300ml and 500ml bottles because a coat is a small thing. A tent flysheet or a caravan awning is square metres of fabric, and you want a litre of concentrate rather than six little bottles. This is the one to reach for at the end of the camping season, before the thing goes into the loft damp and stays there until May.
The catch: it is made for canvas and synthetic tent fabric, not for a membrane jacket, so do not treat this as a cheaper litre of the same stuff. The listing does not give a coverage figure per square metre either.
Grangers Wax Cotton Dressing, 180g
£10.49 on 30 September 2026 · number 12 in the chart
If your coat is waxed cotton, every wash-in proofer on this page is the wrong product. Waxed cotton is reproofed by hand with a wax dressing, warmed so it soaks into the weave rather than sitting on it. One tin does a coat, and it brings a tired, pale jacket back in a way no spray will.
The catch: it is an afternoon’s work. Owners report an hour and a half of rubbing wax in, then twenty minutes with a hairdryer to get it to soak through, and the fabric comes out darker than it went in.
What this guide could not check
How long each treatment lasts in use. None of these brands publishes a wash count or a field-durability figure, and we do not test products, so nothing on this page tells you whether a reproof survives five washes or twenty. We also could not establish PFHxA content for any individual product. Where a listing states PFC-free we have said so, and where it says nothing we have said that instead.
Questions people ask
Does a waterproofing treatment need heat to work?
It depends which one you buy, and the two market leaders differ. Grangers Wash + Repel states that heat activation is required and points you at a low to medium tumble dry, an iron or a hairdryer. Nikwax says TX.Direct treated clothing needs no heat to develop its water repellency, and that tumble drying is optional if the care label allows it. Check the bottle before you assume.
What does it cost to reproof one jacket?
About £3.30 in product with the Nikwax twin pack, and about £3.31 with Grangers Wash + Repel, priced on 30 September 2026. The Grangers route then needs heat, so add roughly 49p for a 45 minute low-heat cycle on a 2.5kW dryer at the 26.32p cap rate that applies from 1 October 2026.
Is the Nikwax twin pack cheaper than buying the bottles separately?
Yes, on the day we looked. The twin pack was £33.00 for a litre of each. Tech Wash 1L on its own was £16.00 and TX.Direct Wash-In 1L was £22.99, which is £38.99 for the same two litres. That is a £5.99 saving, and Amazon prices move, so check both before you buy.
Are these products PFAS free?
Some of them say so on the pack and some say nothing. Nikwax states that TX.Direct Spray On is PFC and aerosol free, and the Amazon listings for Tech Wash and TX.Direct Spray On say PFAS free, while Grangers Wash + Repel says PFC free. The twin pack, the down pack, Fabsil Gold and the wax dressing say nothing either way on their listings. From 10 October 2026 the EU limit on PFHxA in mixtures for the general public applies in Northern Ireland, which stays inside EU REACH, and does not apply in Great Britain, where Defra’s PFAS Plan still has consumer products at the considering stage.
Can I use a wash-in proofer on a waxed cotton jacket?
No. Waxed cotton is reproofed with a wax dressing worked in by hand and warmed so it soaks into the weave. Putting a waxed coat through a washing machine with a wash-in proofer strips the wax rather than replacing it.
Is it worth reproofing an old coat at all?
On cost, almost always. Three pounds of product against a new shell is not a close call, and a coat that wets out is usually a coat whose water repellent finish has worn off rather than one whose membrane has failed. If water is coming through a split seam or a worn-through elbow, that is a repair job and no bottle will fix it.
Sources
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/2462 of 19 September 2024, amending Annex XVII to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 as regards PFHxA. EUR-Lex, read 30 September 2026.
- Health and Safety Executive, Northern Ireland notifications and EU REACH status. hse.gov.uk, read 30 September 2026.
- Defra, PFAS Plan: building a safer future together, updated 17 August 2026. gov.uk, read 30 September 2026.
- Ofgem, Energy price cap unit rates and standing charges. ofgem.gov.uk, read 30 September 2026.
- Nikwax, TX.Direct Wash-In product page and instructions. nikwax.com, read 30 September 2026.
- Nikwax, TX.Direct Spray On product page and instructions. nikwax.com, read 30 September 2026.
- Energy Saving Trust, what appliances drive up electricity bills most. energysavingtrust.org.uk, read 30 September 2026.
Prices were read on amazon.co.uk on 30 September 2026 and change often, so treat them as a guide and check before you buy. Look Into is a Whito Ltd publication. We earn a commission on some links to Amazon at no cost to you, and commission never changes what we recommend or the order we list it in. This page is general information, not legal advice.