Best Ghillie Suit How To Review and Buying Guide

Introduction

Choosing clothes for emergencies or camping should be a well-weighted act, just like the choice of a weapon for self-defense or a gun for survival. Of course, not only jackets and guns are helpful for survival. You also will have to have proper survival gear. Above all, your survival skills are needed to provide efficiency for the tools. Pack up your survival backpack properly so that it should have only those items that are totally effective and efficient. The abundance of food supplies and water resources is crucial. But still: proper clothing is definitely worth thorough consideration. Read on and find out insights into a great clothing item– a ghillie suit.

How to Select the Right Vegetation for Your Ghillie Suit

Those fresh leaves and foliage that you would want to pluck and put on your ghillie suits are not an option under consideration, as they will become brown just a few hours after attaching.

What can you use?

• Some bought dried Raffa grass that you can dye according to your landscape,
• Spanish moss,
• Carpet moss.

And, of course, do not use those plants that can irritate your skin, such as poison ivy. However, you can use such types for covering some of your stockings.

But the best out of all choices would be artificial plants (such as Darice Victoria Lynn), as it is the most beneficial for you:

1. No collecting of vegetation is needed
2. You can use it for a very long time
3. It looks just like the real plants
4. Can match in any season
5. Suitable for rainy weather
6. Can be recycled

There is only one disadvantage with artificial vegetation: it can be very shiny and give you away in a survival situation. However, this can be easily fixed by the use of some spray paint.

Tips to Conceal the Face and Body

Unfortunately, we humans do not have any natural camouflage or adaptive skin, so when hunting or surviving, we must depend on the ghillie suits and any other stuff that can help us.

Now we know how to cover our bodies with the help of camouflage clothing such as ghillie suits, but what about the face and the neck? Here is what you can use:

• Mud
• Grass
• Face Paint
• Leaves
• Camouflage Tarps
• Camo Ponchos
• Ghillie Blankets

Going back to the body, do not forget about the areas where you will use your ghillie suits because woodland camouflage will not work for the savannah, and desert camouflage is not okay for woods.

The basic trick for covering your face is using lighter shades and muds for the darker parts and darker – for the lighter ones.

To the point

When coverage is needed in some off-grid situation, we would say that a ghillie suit is the best item you can only get for such a purpose. Compared to a simple camouflage suit, the ghillie suit creates a 3D volume effect because of its formless structure!

A ghillie suit is a form of camouflage clothing made out of straps of twine material, making our ghillie suits look like some leaves and twigs. A ghillie suit is perfectly capable of protecting you from snow, sand, and any flora around you. As photographers widely use the ghillies in the wild, hunters, snipers, police, and soldiers to hide from different targets, you can say that it is a piece of clothing that you would want to have for any possible survival situation, as both hunting and hiding would be of need in such cases. In addition to ghillie suit you may want to obtain waxed canvas jacket in addition.

And as a lot of the stuff nowadays can be bought online or in the shop, some might want to take this opportunity to buy a ghillie suit, but we warn you that this choice will result in buying the ghillie suit at high prices. Even the best prices that customers can find online can be quite high for some of us, and who guarantees that the quality will be high? Moreover, when you’re short of money, why buy ghillies when you can make them yourself? Get decently warm wool pants for your survival needs.

If interested, please read this article, as we will provide you with all the needed information on how to DIY-make the perfect ghillie suit for hunting and surviving! Knowledgeable in this area, people have helped us create it, so do not be afraid to make a ghillie suit as described here.

Research the Area Around you

When making a ghillie suit without considering the landscape of the area where you would want to use it, you are just wasting your time, as with a high probability this ghillie suit will not blend with the trees, their colors, and shapes.

That is why you need to first go to your area, look around and take a lot of pictures so that later you would know what colors and shapes to use for creating ghillie suits, as well as learn later how to tie knots: with the latter skill this field guide to knots might help you.

For you to be more confident in what you are going to do, here is the list of items that you would need to take with you:

• Camera,
• Pen,
• Notepad,
• Artlicious colored pencils.

The last one will help you understand the colors you would need for the best ghillie suit and make a possibility of creating some sketches of the shapes of the greeneries around you.

A note to remember

Moreover, most customers forget that during different day periods, the sun, the shades, and the colors of your surroundings will change: for this reason, it is an absolute must for you to take pictures during all the possible conditions, such as at the dawn and the dusk, as well as at noon and during different weather conditions, be it a cloudy or a sunny day.

We assure you that you will not regret making this thorough step, as not only it will let you make the perfect ghillie suit that only exists, but also, you will thank yourself later for this part, as you will be able to navigate better, maybe find a possible future shelter, and know in advance what plants you can eat.

Making the Basis of Your Ghillie Suit

After getting acquainted with the surroundings, you would want to create the basis for your ghillie suit, a one or two-layer coverage out of some normal clothing that is supposed to be as similar to your area as possible. This base layer of your ghillie suit also will have a netting, head coverage, some Jute Mesh Blanket material, cloth, and dark green powder dye.

And of course, prepare to be very patient, because you will need it for ghillie suits’ making.

To camouflage the base of your ghillie suit, you can use either:

• Spray paint,
• Fabric patches,
• Old jacket,

It might help to find some ghillie kits on the market, as they can have some amount of materials that you would need for creating a ghillie suit.

Adding the fishnet to your ghillie suit

• First, find some big fishnet that you can cut into long strips of two squares width.
• Second, take a needle and some fishing lines or dental floss that would play the role of a thread, and start sewing mesh knots.
• Third, place the fishnet onto the hands and the front side of your camouflage ghillie suit base, living a six inches distance between the strips.
• Fourth, use some extra-strong glue for holding your stitches, as well as for connecting the base suit with your fishnet.
• Fifth, let your suit lay for the glue to be able to stick decently.

Now It’s Time for Some Burlap

Burlap Strips are the must for a decent camouflage of your ghillie suit: for this to work, an approximate amount of eight pounds of this material is required for one perfect ghillie suit.

But of course, you can find yourself in a situation with no burlap to be found on the market: in this case, some jute twine material will be your salvation, as it is widespread across almost any supply store and is as good for making ghillie suits.

However, any material categories should perfectly blend with the base of your ghillie suit, as well as with the surroundings in which you will be using it. If not, dye according to the color that you need.

When some amount of money is available, try to find some decent ghillie suits.

How to dye the jute

What you would want to do with your jute straps is the following:

1. Dye your straps with the colors of need.
2. Put them into the cold water and keep it like this until you see that the running water is now clear.
3. Put them out and let the staps dry under the heat of the sun.
4. Do not worry about the darkness of your jute twines until the strips are completely dry, as the water makes them look darker.
5. If it is still dark after that, put some bleach into the water and place your stripes.
6. In the end, use a camouflage spray pack for making some volume.

What is next?

When you are sure that your stripes match the colors of the surroundings, it is time to separate your braids to make thin strands.

Be ready for this part, as it is the most time-consuming. The longest strands of your materials will go on the sleeves and the front parts of your ghillie suit, and logically, the shortest parts will be on the back or help you cover the rest of the ghillie suit.

Here are some steps that might make your burden easier:

• You would want to cut a rectangle in the lower/upper part of your burlap for the easier process of dividing the braids.
• Then, step on the sides of your jute so that you can find some horizontal stripes. Do this to match these strands’ lengths to the vertical ones.
• Take your scissors to divide the fibers of your jute twine.
• Rinse the result and repeat the steps for all of your materials.

Knot your jute

One of the last steps in this process of making ghillie suits is to tie the strands to your base suit that is already glued with the fishnet.

Take some jute strips and knot them to the netting: make sure you have 3 or 4 colors in each knot. And also, check your knots so that they would not fall off of your ghillie suits.

Do not tie all of your strands at once. Leave some small amount before finishing up. Why? Because you will need to check your ghillie suit for any spots that look too bald: jiggle your ghillie suit for a bit, then accurately set it on the floor and fill in the last spots.

As the last step, please put on your ghillie suit and make sure that wearing it is comfortable enough.

Creating a Ghillie Hood

This step is optional, but we wrote what you need to make a hood for your ghillie suit.

Nothing much is changed compared to creating ghillie suits by themselves: you simply take your camouflage hat, glue camouflage camping netting to it, and nit some jute strands to the hat.

As a final step, compare the amount of coverage on your ghillie suit and the hood: it should be equal, but if not, add some more to your hat.

Ghillie kits can also be of help here.

Something Extra for you

• Consider attaching some leaves and twigs to your ghillie suits for some additional camouflage.
• When in wooden areas, leaves on your ghillie suit are a must, especially on the backside.
• The neck should also be covered, as it is still easily recognizable when other parts are under camouflage, but the neck is not.
• Finding and buying some ghillie kits might ease your life a bit, as some of the needed materials will be inside of them.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ

Why do They Call it a Ghillie Suit?

A ghillie suit is a form of camouflaging a person using a suit that looks like a bunch of leaves and twigs connected to a piece of clothing. Such kits are widely used by various customers – from wildlife photographers to hunters and snipers.

It got its “ghillie” name from a Scots Gaelic word, “gillie,” which means “a boy.” They used the “gillie” word to refer to outdoor servants, such as those in hunting and fishing fields.

Are Ghillie Suits Illegal?

Ghillie suits are perfectly okay and legal in the States, and we would say that in most other places. Customers would find ghillie suits especially helpful in a survival or hunting situation, like the ability to reload shotshells in need. However, before using ghillie suits for hunting, check your state’s regulations on that matter, and of course, do not go after those species that are not allowed for hunting.

How to Make a Ghillie Suit Cheap?

Take some clothing, a fishnet, and some jute twigs to create a decent ghillie suit. You can also buy some professional ghillie kits for creating the ghillie suit. For more details about DIY ghillie suits, check out the information in our article above. It was written with the help of knowledgeable people, which is why we guarantee you that your self-made ghillie suit will be excellent.