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Can You Make Your Own Camouflage Suit?
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Survival Institute

Can You Make Your Own Camouflage Suit?

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July 29, 2018

In a survival situation, there will be conflict. It’s inevitable. Someone will not have planned ahead, and, if they see someone else surviving with what they want or need, then desperation can drive normally civilized people to doing acts of thievery or violence that they would not normally consider.

Which means that you would do well to be able to handle potential conflicts, and, really, there are only two ways to handle a conflict: avoid it or win it. Assuming that you would rather not get into violence, you’ll need to learn how to avoid conflict, and one of the best ways to avoid conflict is to avoid being detected at all.

Which leads us to camouflage. If you don’t want to be found, it’s better to blend into your surroundings so that you aren’t seen. But, if you don’t have any camouflage suit, then you’ll want to make one. Fortunately, our friends at survivallife.com can tell us how to make our own camouflage suit, to offer the same kind of concealment as the military uses, from only six components: burlap, a camouflage jacket and pants or coverall, camouflage hat, fabric dyes in the color of your surroundings, netting, and shoe glue.

The first thing that you will do is to glue the jacket, hat or coveralls, and hat to the netting. While that dries, you’ll separate the burlap strands from each other. To quote survivallife.com:

Preparing the burlap or jute fibers is the most time-consuming part of making a ghillie suit. Cut strips of burlap, then separate the strings one by one. Longer strands will go on the sleeves, while the shorter ones will overlap down the back.

The third step is to dye the separated burlap strands in colors that match the colors in the environment in which you’ll be hiding. For example, if you are in a deep forest, then varying shades of green with some brown may be appropriate. If you are in a drier, more arid environment, then you may want to lean more towards tan and brown without the greens.

The fourth step is, after the dyed burlap strands have dried, to tie the burlap strands to the netting. Spread the colors out so that it doesn’t looked unnaturally uniform. You may find that you want to tie some natural vegetation to the netting as well, and you’ll want to consider having gloves and face paint so that your skin isn’t easily visible.

The end result that you’re looking for is to, essentially, look like a bit of shrubbery when someone looks at you because, it’s in this ideal situation that you can observe, listen, hunt for game, and not be caught.

So, in a very practical sense, a camouflage suit can be a real help during a survival situation.

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