Read the following information about mylar blankets and their uses. You may be surprised by what you can and cannot do with this noteworthy survivors essential.

Uses of Mylar Blankets for Survival
Astonishing ways to use mylar:

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 (see below for ideas on how to make a tourniquet and more):

•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.

•Learn more about preparing for an EMP.

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).
•make a finger splint (to strap an injured finger to a healthy one).
•craft the mylar into a sling!
•use as cordage for a makeshift tourniquet.

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.
•Neck gaiter. Craft a neck gaiter by affixing a strip of mylar to the back of a baseball cap or hat.

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.
•Insulation for your jacket. To use as insulation for a jacket, shred the mylar and crumple it, then use it like stuffing inside your jacket. This will help to create pockets of air released from your body heat.
•Insulation for a sleeping bag. Keep yourself toasty in a sleeping bag by lining the inside of your bag so that you trap the hot air.
•Duvet insulation. For a Winter's night, slip a blanket in the duvet cover. This will help retain your body heat.

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.

FYI: Mylar does not breathe and you should never pull a mylar blanket over your head. Breathing will release condensation and essentially this will lower your body temperature. There is a possibility you could even freeze!

Also, as great as mylar is, it also tears fairly easily and it makes a lot of noise! If you are trying to evade someone or sneak up on supper/prey you will be heard.

For more information on mylar blankets go to Happy Preppers. There is a lot of great material about mylar and even more dos and do-nots!