Black Diamond White Gold Review
Cons: Easy to spill, creates a lot of dust
Manufacturer: Black Diamond
Our Verdict
Compare to Similar Products
 This Product
Black Diamond White Gold | |||||
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| Awards |  |  |  | | |
| Price | $15.00 List Check Price at REI | $15.00 List $7.50 at Amazon | $8.95 at REI Compare at 2 sellers | $10.00 List $9.95 at Backcountry | $7.00 List |
Overall Score  |
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| Star Rating | |||||
| Pros | Widely available, good texture and friction, nice price | Awesome resealable packaging, easy to dump in the chalk bag, good value, consistent texture | Coats hands well, least expensive "climbing specific" chalk | Nice sized container, easy to load without spilling | Very porous cloth, decent coverage for a chalk ball |
| Cons | Easy to spill, creates a lot of dust | No hard chunks for making tick marks | Low friction, doesn't last as long as other chalks | Pricey | Still allows a lot of chalk dust into the air |
| Bottom Line | This magnesium carbonite keeps your hands dry without costing an arm and a leg | We love the solid reusable container and the solid value of this chalk | This chalk is the most cost effective way to keep your hands dry | A resealable container keeps chalk from spilling all over your pack, and the chalk is quality | This is the chalk ball for people who don't like using chalk balls, but have to because their gym makes them |
| Rating Categories | Black Diamond White... | Trango Gunpowder | Metolius Super Chalk | Petzl Power Crunch Box | Black Diamond Refil... |
| Friction & Overall Feel (25%) | |||||
| Coverage (25%) | |||||
| Mess (25%) | |||||
| Value (25%) | |||||
| Specs | Black Diamond White... | Trango Gunpowder | Metolius Super Chalk | Petzl Power Crunch Box | Black Diamond Refil... |
| Resealable Packaging? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price Per oz | $1.84/oz | $1.13/oz | $0.80/oz | $2.13/oz | $4.95 per ball |
| Type | Loose | Loose | Loose | Loose | Refillable Ball |
| Drying Additive | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Texture | Chunky to fine | Fine | Fine | Chunky | Fine |
Our Analysis and Test Results
White Gold is the top choice of several of our testers, citing that it feels "grippier" than Metolius Super Chalk and the Frank Endo chalk blocks and noting that it's much cheaper than Friction Labs Gorilla Grip. However, none of our testers were able to correctly identify White Gold during our blind testing.
Performance Comparison
Friction & Overall Feel
Much like the Frank Endo Chalk Blocks, BD White Gold can start out as chunky as you'd like, and breaks down into dust over time in your chalk bag. In its chunkiest form, it leaves a thin layer of chalk dust on your hands every time you dip in the bag. Once it's ground to a powder, you can cake it on thick if that's what you're into.
Testing friction performance with the loose chalk turned out to be pretty inconclusive. Many testers had a bias against Metolius Super Chalk, but when doing a blind comparison on sloper holds in the gym, no one could tell a big difference in performance.
Coverage
The liquid chalk from Mammut and Friction Labs gave us the best coverage, followed by the loose chalks, and then the chalk balls. Among the loose chalks, BD White Gold leaves a thicker layer of chalk on your hands than Gorilla Grip, and about the same as the Metolius Super Chalk and the Endo. So if you need a thick, cakey layer of chalk on your hands to feel confident that you'll stick to the climbing holds, White Gold delivers.
We found we got the best coverage when we combined loose chalk with a liquid chalk base layer. Check out how much chalk was left on our testers hands after three reps of hanging on slopers in the photos below.
Mess
You'll need to take care getting this chalk out the re-sealable plastic packaging and into your chalk bag. The 300g bag has a huge opening, so simply pouring the chalk into your chalk bag will result in chalk spilled on the ground, gym floor, or our case, the trunk of the car. You'll want a scooper of some kind unless you're ok with getting chalk on your hands every time.
Value
This stuff goes for about $1.03 per ounce. While not quite as good a deal as Metolius Super Chalk, it's way cheaper than Friction Labs Chalk and 10 cents per ounce cheaper than Frank Endo. We think its the best compromise of price and performance.
Conclusion
Black Diamond White Gold doesn't come in consistent sizes and textures like the Friction Labs Chalk, but it's a much better value. Even our more discerning testers couldn't find anything to complain about. If you're lucky enough to climb a lot and go through tons of chalk, White Gold is the Way to go.
— Matt Bento
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