Material - There are two main types available, Nylon and Mohair. Nylon is probably most common, offering superb grip and a surprising amount of glide, they are also very durable. Mohair is a bit lighter and offers much better glide but is not quite so durable. A good compromise is a mixed skin which offers many of the advantages of both materials.

Width – With skis coming in a variety of shapes and getting increasingly wider you will find that the best grip can be gained if the skin covers the entire base of the ski with only the metal edges showing. It doesn’t matter if there is a bigger gap at the tip and the tail as long as the skin comes to the metal under the main section of the ski fore and aft of the foot. If you have some big fat skis that you may want to do some short ski tours on, you can take an old pair of skins and split them up the middle which allows you to follow the edge of the ski with the skin which is the most important area.

Attachment – There are a couple of different attachment systems, most have a loop at the front which goes over the tip of the ski then the skin is smoothed along the base of the ski. Some systems have a clip at the tail, some are clipped over the tail first then smoothed to the tip, and some don’t have any tail fixation at all. Personally I have used skins without any tail fixation for the past 15 years and never had any problems; you just have to make sure that the tail of the skin has plenty of glue on it.