If you have a survival kit of any kind, there's a pretty good chance that you have a mylar blanket of some kind in there. Whether you have a mylar sleeping bag or just the standard “emergency blanket,” this tool has a lot more uses than most people realize. Check out how you can apply this tool to various scenarios below.
To use a mylar blanket or sleeping bag properly: squat, then wrap it around you!
This will minimize the cold you will feel from the ground. While a mylar blanket can be good as a ground covering, it has no insulation on its own, and this could even make you even more cold in an extreme survival situation.
If you must sleep in your mylar, the best way to use a mylar blanket is to use two of them: one as a ground covering and the other to retain your heat. Also be sure to add a layer between you and the ground, such as dry leaves.
IMPORTANT SURVIVAL NOTATION: Never pull a mylar blanket over your head!
If you do, your breath will release condensation and effectively this will lower
your body temperature. You may even freeze to death!
Mylar Use #1: Carryall.
With mylar or any blanket, you can carry items in a horsehoe pack or hobo pack.
Roll all your items into the mylar blanket, tie with cordage and sling over a shoulder.
Horseshoe pack: Here’s how to build a horse-shoe pack.
Hobo pack: Also called a bindle, hobos were famous for carrying stuff on a
stick. Bandannas work too. To make a carryall from mylar, cut some cordage
from the mylar, then sling some berries, apples or gear in the center of the
mylar bag tying the bag with the mylar cordage onto a stick. Now you can
swing the stick over your shoulder and be on your way.
Milkmaid’s yoke. If you have two space blankets you can craft a carrying
pole to leverage the weight of your luggage onto your shoulders. This is the
classic look you’ve seen women in China use to carry wares on a stick. In the
United States women in Chinatown use them to carry bundles of recyclables
they collect in urban environments.
Mylar Use #2: Chicken Coup insulation.
Have some hens? Mylar will help you keep your girls cool in the summer and warmer
in the winter. Reflect the heat and cool the interior of a chicken coup with mylar
blankets. Now that’s one way to avoid frying your egg-laying chickens!
Mylar Use #3: Cordage.
Hopefully your bugout bag include paracord, but if not, you can rely on mylar as
cordage if you cut it into strips. Because mylar tears so easily, you can use this
cordage.
How can you use mylar as cordage to help you survive? Cordage is always useful
for first aid.
Catching food. Making fishing lines, trap triggers, and snares
Lashing shelter. Cut into strips you can use the cordage to tie shelter
together.
Improvising a Leg gaiter. Tie a pant leg as a gaiter to avoid ticks or wick
away water from pant legs or use in combination with duct tape.
Using as a Territory marker or path marker. As a way to mark your path
from camp to a hunt and back again.
Mylar Use #4. Dry your camping laundry more quickly.
How can mylar help you do your camp laundry? Wash laundry as you would
ordinarily, drip dry it, then as a final touch, place your garment directly atop the
mylar blanket to dry. The sun will dry it faster than on a clothes line. Try it! You may
need to flip the garment.
Mylar Use #5: EMP protection.
Mylar alone will not help protect your electronics from an ElectroMagnetic Pulse
(EMP), but it does provide a layer of protection for your electronic equipment. You’ll
need to use mylar bags and place your gear also into insulated metal containers (a
Faraday cage). Even then you’ll have to pray, because it’s unproven as to whether
a Faraday cage will withstand the immense magnitude of Electromagnetic
destruction a solar flare can produce.
Mylar Use #6: Evading thermal imaging.
If one day you’re a prepper evading drones, you can remember this handy trick
about using mylar to evade detection: mylar will make you invisible! Avoid thermal
imaging is a drone’s primary source of detecting people.
Mylar Use #7: Fire Starter.
With a bit of ingenuity and a hot day, you can use your mylar as a reflective fire
starter. Dig a hole and place mylar reflective side up. Now place dry tinder
materials, which will act like a sun oven onto the tinder. With time you should have
a smoldering start of a fire with which to feed into larger fire.
Mylar Use #8: First aid.
Obviously, a mylar blanket will help a hypothermia victim retain heat, but mylar has many first aid purposes too:
compress wounds to bandage (for example paired with a feminine napkin, it can helps stop the blood).
Mylar Use #9: Fishing lure.
Craft a makeshift fishing lure with mylar (or enhance the one you have). Fisherman
often use prism tape to dress up spoons, crank baits, spinners and other lures. See
the mylar skirt lure, pictured immediate left. To make a mylar skirt lure, you’ll need
to cut the mylar into fringe.
Mylar Use #10: Heat reflection.
As previously mentioned, mylar can help you avoid thermal imaging of drones. Mylar
actually works better as a sunshade than it does as a blanket for the elements.A
Mylar space blanket can provide you with sun protection. It reflects heat to keep
you cool. Place it shiny side up to create shade.
Sunshade for your vehicle. As a sunshade, mylar works incredibly well. Mylar
deflects heat to help in extremely hot climates, particularly if you are trying to
stay cool and don’t have any air conditioning.
Mylar Use #11: Heat retention.
The primary use of mylar blanket is to prevent heat-loss. It’s intended to help you
retain 90% of your body heat in a survival situation or in the event of trauma shock
where you’ll need to keep body temperature stable. In other words, a mylar
blanket keeps what body heat you have, so that you don’t loose more. Here are
more ways mylar can help with heat retention:
Keep warmer near a fire. To keep warmer near a fire, out a mylar blanket
behind your back on a camp chair or behind your backpack, so that the heat
reflects back towards your body.
Windbreaker: Mylar can act as a wind shield to cut the chill.
Prevent frost bite. In extreme conditions, you can cut the mylar and line your
boots and gloves to help avoid frost bite. Be sure to allow moisture to wick
away however, so as to avoid hypothermia.
Mylar Use #12 Hydroponics.
Pictured immediate left, a 50 foot roll of reflective mylar film can give your plants an
extra boost of light without using any more electricity for your hydro farm.
Apart from its obvious use as an aid for warmth in your tent or shelter, some of the best uses for a mylar blanket that are listed above are its use as a fishing lure, which is extremely effective due to its attention-grabbing reflective properties, and its use near a campfire. For use near a campfire, you can cut out the wind so building a fire is easier and you can also erect it behind yourself so that the heat of the campfire warms your back and not just your front.
This is all excellent advice for anyone from the car camper to the backwoods survivalist. For more advice like this and to read the original article, go to Happy Preppers.
Featured Image via MSC