Note: Bouldering photos were taken before the Coronavirus lockdown.

The Lorentz Pant and Bamboo Tech Long Sleeve Tee are two super stretchy, and stylish, pieces of climbing clothing from Moon. They're both really well suited to the climbing wall or fair-weather climbing outside and both pieces look so good that you might think they're not for climbing at all.

Bamboo Tech Long Sleeve Tee - £45

The Bamboo Tech Top is really stretchy, and great for climbing in. It follows the recent trend of using bamboo, along with organic cotton and elastane, as one of its main materials (49% Bamboo, 46% Organic Cotton, 5% Elastane). This works well as a combinaiton as it's stretchy and wicking, and it doesn't get smelly (well OK, it will eventually). It's also really soft and comfortable to wear; the sizing seems spot-on too - my medium fits as I would expect it to.

The Bamboo Tech Tee looks really good with the stripy Moon design and logo and it's always nice to wear something to the wall or crag which is great to climb in but doesn't make you look like a scruffy climber. It's quite a thin t-shirt, so best suited to summer or indoor use, when it's really nice and cool, although you could use it as part of a layering system in colder weather.

The Bamboo Tech Top is available for both men and women.

For more info see moonclimbing.com

Lorrentz Pants - £70

The Lorrentz Pants are similar to the Bamboo Tech Tee in that they're really stretchy - impressively so for a pair of trousers - and again they look really good. In fact, they look much more like a thin pair of skinny chinos than climbing trousers, and you could wear them in the real world without being caught out.

Climbing trousers are quite a big deal as you want total freedom of movement for your legs when you're chucking heels and high feet around (or, perhaps in my case, you just need enough room for your legs to shake wildly when you're scared). As such, when I'm trying on a new pair of climbing trousers the first thing I do is put them on and do over-exaggerated leg flailing to see how stretchy they are. When I first saw the Lorrentz I thought 'hmm, this is an extremely skinny and fashionable pair of trousers' but I'm pleased to say they passed the silly walk test and they allow total freedom of movement.

Again, like the Bamboo Tech Tee the Lorrentz Pant are on the thinner side of the equation, meaning they're certainly best suited to indoor and summer climbing. As the material is quite thin, I would avoid wearing them on particularly abrasive rock or if you're planning on using your knees (funnily enough the two situations I can think of are polar opposites: deploying an emergency knee whilst ledge shuffling on a trad route, or flopping in to a knee bar on a horrendously overhanging sport route). In fact, on the second time I wore my Lorrentz pants indoors, and without a noticeable abrasion, a small rip appeared:

Sizing-wise, I took my Lorrentz Pant in a medium which equates to 32/32. I know this size of trousers fits me, but I found the Lorrentz a bit long in the leg, which is no problem as they're tight-fitting and you can roll the cuffs up, but it does mean the material bunches up on the leg a bit, giving a bit of a Michelin-man appearance, which does away with their stylish credentials a little. That said, the Lorrentz are still great to climb in and they're my trousers of choice for the wall. There's no women's version though.

For more info see moonclimbing.com

Overall

Overall the Bamboo Tech long sleeve tee and Lorrentz Pants are both super stretchy, super comfortable and super stylish pieces of clothing which are perfect for indoor or summer climbing. Unfortunately I did have a couple of quality issues with my Lorrentz but they are minor and perhaps I was just unlucky. I still wear both pieces regularly as they're the best looking climbing clothes I've ever owned!

Moon Chalk Eco Packaging

Moon have recently changed the packaging of their loose chalk and chalk balls to eco-friendly recyclable packaging. Before I was sent some as part of this review, I saw the new packaging at the climbing wall and thought 'that's a brilliant idea, why has no one done it before?' (And whilst we're at it, why not have a big barrel of loose chalk that people can buy per scoop at the wall? That would save a load of packaging - I'll collect my royalties later).

The packaging is 100% plastic free, recyclable paper and the brown colour really stands out against the other plastic packaging on display. I suppose one of the potential downsides of non-plastic packaging is that it doesn't seal as well and your loose chalk spills everywhere. This certainly hasn't happened with the Moon chalk - the top of the packet is a roll-top which it has two reusable tabs to seal it closed. It might not be quite as water-tight as a plastic seal but it works very well and you can happily chuck it in your bag without fear of it spilling.

The chalk itself is the same tried-and-tested 100% pure magnesium carbonate Moon Dust so whilst the packaging has changed, the chalk stays the same.