100% took its time-tested lens design and eyewear engineering knowledge and applied it to a fresh line of ski and snowboard goggles. And it’s coming out of the snowsports gate on fire.
December can be a crap shoot for ski weather in the West. It can be a warm, bluebird day, with bright sunshine and no wind at all. It can be overcast, with flat light, and sleety snow. Or it can be freezing cold out, with heavy gusts of wind whipping the air and limiting visibility to yards or even feet.
This year we’d gotten a good early-season snow base. I’d already been skiing both in the backcountry and in the resort, in Utah and in Colorado. And so far, I’d seen a lot of that variable weather.
Which was perfect for testing out the new 100% Norg snow goggles. The brand, first known for its motocross eyewear, broke into the skiing and boarding scene this year with a lineup of several different goggles: the Snowcraft, the Okan, and the Norg.
The Norg is the brand’s flagship snow goggle — and it’s the most hyped from the lineup. By the time I started testing these goggles out, they’d already won a 2022 ISPO Award for design and innovation. They’d also already been included in numerous roundups of the “Best Snow Goggles,” promising sharper contrast, peak color awareness, and better vision. See how they stack up in Gear Junkie’s Best Ski Goggles Buyer’s Guide.
In short: Over the course of 2 months, I tested the 100% Norg snow goggles in a variety of environments and weather conditions. Despite some personal holdups over size and shape, they lived up to the hype. They were comfortable, they kept my face warm, they never once fogged up on me, and most importantly, the visual clarity of these 100% lenses was astonishingly sharp.
100% Norg Snow Goggle Review
100% has been a household name in motocross eyewear since the ’80s. In the decades since, it’s branched out, making goggles and sunglasses for mountain biking, cycling, running, baseball, and, most recently, snowsports.
It’s taken its high-performance lens and frame technologies and applied those to every new line of eyewear it’s created. Its snow goggles now stand on top of all that innovation and engineering.
“With our brand’s first snow goggle collection, we are authoring a new chapter for 100%,” said Gwen van Lingen, the brand’s vice president of global marketing and sales. “We saw an opportunity to really innovate and jumped at it.”
The Norg Goggle
Lenses
100% used its proprietary 3DPlane Molded Lens Technology in the Norg. According to the brand, this tech provides “unparalleled structural integrity to the lens, while keeping the frame soft and comfortable.”
Structural integrity and flexibility are important features of any goggle. But when it comes right down to it, the number one most important element of any eyewear is its lens clarity. I’ve used some goggles that distort colors and others that make details fuzzy at a distance. That can be a liability when you’re charging down a mountain.
But the visual clarity of the Norgs actually made my jaw drop when I put them on. I looked around. I took them off and put them back on again, doing a double take. Indeed, the world actually seemed more HD than normal through the Norgs. Colors popped and details were sharp. I felt as though they almost improved my vision like a pair of prescription glasses.
That’s largely thanks to the brand’s HiPER tints. According to 100%, HiPER mirror tints filter out certain light wavelengths, making the visual contrast of their lenses distinct and maximizing the clarity.
As I skied, every feature of the mountain was perfectly clear to me. As I rode the lift, I purposefully stared hard into the distance, paying close attention to the details of the mountain ridges and snow-covered woods. Visually, I couldn’t ask for more from a pair of ski goggles. 100% has their lenses dialed.
Lens Swapping
On top of all this, the 100% Gravit8 magnetic system makes swapping low-light lenses for high-light lenses pretty idiot-proof. When weather rolled in on me, and the blue sky was replaced with a flat ceiling of clouds, I pulled the magnetic lens off and swapped it, without removing the goggles from my helmet and without even taking my gloves off.
It was so easy, in fact, I had to wonder whether or not the lens would stay put in a yard sale crash. I am no stranger to eating it on the mountain from time to time, and a big biff might knock the lens off its magnetic connection. Luckily, I didn’t get a chance to test that particular aspect of the goggles.
100% Norg Performance
Ok, so the lenses are great. But how does the rest of the goggle perform?
Over the course of my test, I used the Norg goggles in snow flurries, on cold bluebird days, and on humid overcast days. The variability in temperature and lighting was pretty extensive.
One of the things that quickly stuck out was the antifog capabilities of the 100% design. This was something that Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, the gold medal Olympic snowboarder from New Zealand, mentioned too. Sadowski-Synnott was one of the first snow athletes 100% signed, and in talking with her about the goggles she was most impressed by the fact that they never fogged up on her.
They haven’t fogged up on me, either. Not on the humid days, or the bluebird days when I was working up a sweat in the moguls. The goggles use a dual-pane lens system that is noticeably beefier than comparable dual-lens goggles. The sealed space between the two panes helps regulate the lens’ temperature, preventing fog from forming.
These goggles are also comfortable and warm. The face foam is made with moisture-wicking microfleece that stays dry and feels nice and soft against your cheeks. It also insulates well, preventing cold air from getting in under the frame.
100% Style
Every pair of sunglasses and goggles that 100% makes has a look. That’s to be expected from any brand, but especially one that’s been an icon of motocross Americana for decades.
The goggles from 100% are no different. They’re big. They have a distinctly 100% look, with a highly mirrored lens tint and stylized frame shapes. Specifically for the Norg, the nose bridge juts out slightly almost like a motocross or snowmobile goggle.
Personally, the style was the only feature of these goggles I wasn’t totally sold on. That’s not to say they don’t look fly, or that skiers and riders won’t like the way they look in them. A lot of people will love these goggles specifically for their style. It just wasn’t for me.
And while we’re being critical, the size of the Norg is worth a mention too. Most people like their goggles big, but the Norgs are distinctly large — even for ski goggles. If you’ve got a smaller face, the Norg might be too big for you.
The Norgs come in seven different colors, and each pair comes with two colored lenses — one for low-light conditions and one for high-light conditions.
Conclusion
When it comes to the aesthetics of a pair of snow goggles, everyone is going to have a different preference. Just like clothes, the color, shape, and fit of the eyewear is a subjective choice for each individual to make.
When it comes to the performance and quality of a pair of goggles, though, that’s a much more quantitative thing to measure. And performance-wise, the 100% Norg snow goggles met or exceeded my expectations. The visual clarity was out of this world. The antifog properties were impressive. And changing the lens was faster and easier than I’ve ever experienced.
As far as snow goggles go, 100% came out of the gate strong with the Norg. I’m excited to see more from their snowsports line of eyewear.
