When opened completely, the actual canopy of the umbrella was fairly small, and the T-shaped ends gave the umbrella a scalloped shape, making it easier for rain to come in.

That being said, the Blunt Travel Umbrella came with some great features that set it apart from the less expensive models, other than just being extremely lightweight and made of high quality materials. When comparing the best umbrellas for travel, it’s really the little things that make a big difference. While the primary market for this invention was a new type of vacuum cleaner, Rainbow realized that you could also use this technology on a smaller scale as an “air purifier.”The Repel Windproof Travel Umbrella also boasts fast-drying Teflon fabric, which is nice, but I can’t say it dried any faster than any of the other umbrellas I tested out. As this air purifier uses water to filter the air, there are no extra filter costs to consider as you just change the water every few weeks. This was also the only umbrella I tested that did not collapse automatically with the push of a button, but it was very easy to pull down manually, so that is a plus. So while you don’t want to splurge too much on an umbrella that you run a high chance of losing or barely using, you still want your umbrella to get the job done. You need to fill up the main tank with water before using it to clean your air, which is easy enough. The LEDs catch your attention and can go from blue, red and green to yellow.

Anyway, the rainy season is upon us again and it's always a challenge to stay stylish at the same time as getting drookit. Despite its vintage pedigree, we would have to draw the line at describing the rain-mate as stylish. The collapse button works the same as the rest, but again, it is a bit hard to open and close all the way.

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That’s definitely something every traveler (and every human being with an ounce of dignity) would like to avoid. I have read a ton of academic studies around the performance of HEPA and activated charcoal at removing pollutants and gasses from the air. Still, I have not seen any studies about the power of water to remove these types of pollutants. Warranty is “lifetime” but only protects against defects that you would conceivably notice right out of the box If you’re anything like me, an umbrella is something that you’re constantly misplacing. Because this umbrella is pretty high tech (and high cost), I would be pretty bummed out if I was to misplace it. So even with all of the cool features and the high quality of the entire product, this umbrella falls short when it comes to its main purpose: rain protection.

The construction of the Repel Windproof Travel Umbrella is very similar to the Rain Mate compact travel umbrella; the only differences between the two compact travel umbrellas is that the Repel is made with a heavier, less comfortable handle and it has Telfon coating.All of the umbrellas I reviewed are good quality, portable, and affordable and each have their own special features and designs that make them unique. Even with all these bells and whistles, though, I had some major problems with this umbrella’s size. Collapsed completely, the umbrella was several inches taller than all of the rest I tried out, making it less portable than the others. This umbrella was by far the most expensive umbrella I tried, sitting at about triple the price of the other compact umbrellas on this list. The 2021 edition has a reinforced rib canopy that makes it super sturdy. This compact travel umbrella is lightweight and the one I tried out had a cheerful blue sky pattern printed on the inside, so it felt like I was in a little rain-free world of my own.