Comfort, warmth and durability in frigid conditions, the O’Neill Psycho 3 will keep you toasty and comfy when the weather and water are unpleasant.

Today we review the new model O’Neill Psycho 3 5/3 Zen Zip steamer wetsuit along with the O’Neill 3mm Blackwater Hood, O’Neill 1/5mm gloves and Rip Curl Flash Bomb 3mm booties.  Plenty of rubber to keep you warm!

 
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Pluses
+ Day in, day out, surfing twice a day for three weeks, I can’t fault this suit.  Warm, flexible, comfortable
+ 5/3 (vs. 4/3 or 5/4) is a great design call.  Thickness where you need it, more flexibility where you don’t!  My core was always warm, my extremities never cold
+ Even at this thickness, the O’Neill Psycho 3 5/3 dried faster than I expected

Minuses
– An optional chest zip with removable hood like the Mutant would be great.  This was such a popular feature, why isn’t this standard on all cold water suits?
– As I wore the suit consistently, the neck loosened up and I started to get some water down the chest.  While in the water, I had to take my gloves off, pull up my hood and readjust.  Waves missed.  Fail

Video Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Benny’s Boardroom! I’m Ben underneath all this rubber and today we’re going to talk about wetsuits. If you are going into winter where you are, in Europe or the U.S. for example, you might need a serious cold water getup. I just traveled to Cape Town, South Africa for three weeks and the water temperature didn’t go above nine degrees Celcius (48F) the entire time I was there. [00:00:30] It was brutally cold but luckily I picked up some gear before I left, which I’m wearing now.

This is the O’Neill Psycho 3 5/3 wetsuit with the Zen Zip back zip. It’s got all of the latest technology for the top of the line O’Neill suits, and I have to say day in and day out this thing was fantastic. I don’t usually like wearing back zips, but the back zip didn’t bother me at all. I found it really flexible. It didn’t feel like it was as restrictive as I found other back zips in the past. [00:01:00] I usually wear chest zips.

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I wore these O’Neill Psycho 1.5 mm gloves, and in the water basically there were two types of people. There were the types of people who were sitting with their hands normally, resting on their thighs while they were sitting on their boards and there were people who were sitting with their hand out of the water because it was so cold. Get a pair of gloves. They’re fantastic. They take a little bit of time to get used to, but once you get used to them then they make all the difference in the world.

Then I wore this 3 mm O’Neill Blackwater hood [00:01:30] and this helped keep the wind and the cold off my head. Again, doing a duck dive without this thing on was an instant cold headache. This helped a lot to keep that sensation away, and I like the fact that I can take it off. On days where it was really hot outside, being able to pull off the 3 mm Blackwater hood was useful. Anyways, I need to take all of this off.

Oh, booties. The only thing that’s not O’Neill in my repertoire here was these Rip Curl Flash Bomb booties. [00:02:00] Now I prefer the Rip Curl booties. They do seem to fit my feet better and I think they feel a little bit softer. I don’t notice them as much on the surfboard so that’s why I chose these, but everything else is O’Neill. And that was my cold water getup in South Africa.

So if you’re going into winter, I think the 5/3 combination on the Psycho 3 is fantastic. You’ve got five mm’s of neoprene going through your core here where you really need it and then you get three mm’s of neoprene on the arms and legs so you feel a little bit more flexible.

I really can never feel my arms and legs getting cold and my core is always warm, so I think the 5/3 combination is actually fantastic. [00:02:30] I prefer it to a 5/4 or a 4/3.

Thanks very much for watching the show. Hope you gained a lot out of it. Hit subscribe if you’re into it and thanks for watching.

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