Elderly Gentleman> cheers for the honest reply! in the beginning I was looking into triple 8 but now I just don't know...what other helmets did you rock? good to hear it did its job and actually saved your noggin
I know a couple of others that I had were the Protec Classic Skate and a Protec P2 (I think) Certified. The Classic Skate was a good helmet. It fit my head and didn't wobble around. After getting used to wearing it, it was actually comfortable. The only problem I had was wear and tear. I'm old and a bit out of shape so I get sweaty pretty fast just doing simple board slides, ollies, manuals and pumping around the bowl doing grinds and rock and rolls. Anyway, after wearing it 2 or 3 times a week and getting really sweaty (I would lean over the fence and press against the front of the helmet and sweat would pour out of the front foam pad against my forehead) the padding started to wear. Let's face it, if you wear this thing a few times and get sweaty, it's going to start to reek. About once every week or so I would pull the padding out of the helmet and wash them. After doing that several times, the padding started to get brittle and the velcro wasn't holding it in place very well. Also it was more uncomfortable to wear over time.
The Certified helmet just sucked. It was super cheap so I got it as a replacement to the first one. I was thinking, "Hey, it's certified, so it must be really good and have good padding." NOPE. It had the styrofoam looking filling molded into the inside of the shell with thin foam padding that's removable to wash. It never quite felt comfortable. Also, it was bulky as hell. It wasn't really that heavy but the added foam made it stick out all the way around like a mushroom top. I looked like a circumcised penis! Wearing a helmet will never be "cool" but some models at least look halfway decent. This isn't one of them. I ended up taking the padding out of it and putting it in the old classic skate shell to get a little more life out of it. It wasn't long before I was having the same issue with sweat running into my eyes and the padding getting brittle.
The triple 8 sweat saver solved all the issues. It had the style and fit similar to the classic skate, but the terry cloth wrap on the padding soaked up the sweat better so it isn't constantly running down my face and into my eyes. Also the velcro is better it seems so I haven't had any issues after dozens of washes. I just pull the padding out, toss it in the washing machine, then put it back in and let it air dry. It will take getting used to like any helmet but if you have to wear one, at least get one that fits and looks decent (at least as good as it can possibly look wearing a helmet).