I’m a big Arai fan and honestly wasn’t impressed with ICON’s helmets when they first came out, so I was a little nervous about getting this new Domain 2 helmet from ICON to wear and review. I needn’t have worried as ICON has come a long way since they started.

I kind of have a dragon fetish (no I don’t have little dragon statues everywhere) so when I was looking through the different offerings I couldn’t help but fall for the Domain 2 Serpecant model. Plus in “Slayer Black” the color combination matches perfectly with my leathers; black, red, and gray.

This color scheme will also match the Project FJR paint whenever that gets done. As every fashionista knows color coordinating is very important.

When I got the ICON first thing I noticed is that the bag for it has an outside pouch. “What is this for?”, I wondered. After much head scratching and pondering I picked-up one of the accessory tinted shields that ICON sent and BANG! it hit me. The outside pouch was to store your extra visor in! Crikey!

I felt like one of those monkey’s learning to use tools in 2001: A Space Odyssey; all I needed was a black obelisk to sit next to. Sometimes it is the simplest things that throw you off.

Picking-up the helmet showed me one thing that ICON hasn’t changed from their early days of building helmets; weight. This is now the heaviest helmet we have tested here, weighing in at 61.9 ounces. This means the Domain 2 weighs almost a half a pound more than the Arai Profile and 4 ounces more than the last heavyweight we tested, the Akuma Apache.

The one saving grace about the Domain 2 and its weight is that it is very well balanced so doesn’t actually cause any neck strain while it is sitting on your head or while riding.

The overall finish of the Domain 2 is top-notch with a high gloss and clear coat over the stickers. The shape of the Domain 2 is what I would call “aggressive”. The Arai Profile looks rounded and smooth while the ICON Domain 2 has enough scoops, wings and exhaust ports to do a “tuner” car justice. I wasn’t sure about the look until I saw the helmet in person. It does actually flow, design wise, quite well and looks purposeful.

One other thing that does flow pretty well is air through the helmet. With a total of 4 intake ports (1-chin, 3-top of helmet) and 4 exhaust ports (2-chin, 2-rear of helmet) the Domain 2 does a pretty decent job of keeping your head cool; even in 95 degree/ 90% humidity Florida days. The chin intake port is hidden in the rubber molding at the bottom of the helmet and acts like a scoop to force air inside and over your face.

The helmet comes with a large chin curtain and breath deflector, both of which I removed for summer riding as I want as much air as possible coming in the helmet. Both those pieces will however be reinstalled once the weather starts cooling down.

The Domain 2 is definitely designed to fit a “long-oval” head shape and is fitted out with a very attractive interior. Like Arai, ICON offers different sized cheek-pads and liners so that you can custom fit the helmet to your specific head shape and size. In keeping with their urban image,  ICON designs the interiors of their Domain 2 helmets to complement the exterior graphics.

The interior is made from a tri-density foam compound that is very comfortable and helps eliminate “hot spots”.  The top layer of the comfort liner is made with ICON’s own moisture-wicking material they call HydraDry. This material helps rapidly move moisture away from your head to provide increased cooling. As in all high-end helmets the liner is completely removable to allow you to wash it.

The outer shell is constructed from Fiberglass, Carbon Fiber and Dyneema and is both DOT and Snell certified. I’ll admit that I had to look up what Dyneema was as I wondered if it was a fancy name for plastic. Turns out that it isn’t and it is actually touted as the worlds strongest fiber used in fishing nets (it floats), the medical field and in bullet resistant armor among other things.

No the Domain 2 isn’t bulletproof (at least I don’t think it is, but I’m not going to find out) but the use of quality materials shows how serious ICON is about building a great helmet.

I expected the Domain 2 to be noisier than the Arai it replaces and I was right to an extent. You do get a little more wind noise from the Domain 2 which is mostly due to the larger scoops on the helmet but not enough to really matter. The visor opening itself is ,vertically, a little small and does seem to intrude a bit on (but not block) your view when leaned over in corners.

The visor opening also doesn’t seem to wrap around the helmet as much as some so you do lose a couple degrees of peripheral vision. We’re not talking huge blind-spots here but it something to be aware of and get accustomed to when you first start wearing the helmet.

One thing that has always driven me nuts is shield distortion. ICON has eliminated that effect with their ProShield system on the Domain 2 helmets. By using a 3-dimensional molding process they are able to offer a distortion free shield that is almost impossible to achieve by companies still using the older flat-molding process. Both the clear (fog-free) visor and the Dark Smoke tinted visor they sent offer distortion free viewing.

The only shield I have any distortion out of at all is the RST mirrored shield (in silver)- and that is truly only a very minor distortion at the very top of the shield. One thing I did notice about the RST shield was that when the sun is shining into the visor your face gets reflected, albeit in a hugely distorted way, on the inside of the shield. Once you are used to the effect of seeing your nose and lips looking 5 times bigger than normal it becomes a non issue.

Whenever I use that shield though I keep thinking about the Easter Island head in Night at the Museum; “Me no dum-dum, you dum-dum. Me want gum-gum” keeps going over and over in my head. That ends up being more distracting than the reflection! The ProShield system also comes with a locking mechanism to ensure your visor stays down and doesn’t open when wind hits it.

When it comes time to replace the shield (or change from clear to tint or vice-versa) taking the shield off is simply a matter of moving a lever on each side of the helmet. Once you move the lever into its forward “unlocked” position the visor pops out on that side. Once that is done all you need to do is fight with the cover that is installed on the side of the shield to cover the mounting mechanism.

ICON basically put side plates on the helmet but attaches them to the visor. You could purchase an additional set for your second visor but having the side plates pre-mounted on the visor complicates the installation process.

ICON builds a helmet, in the Domain 2, that can go head to head with just about any helmet manufacturer on the market. Sure it isn’t going to win any weight competitions, and it doesn’t have any race pedigree, but the build quality and overall design of the Domain 2 make it attractive for those looking for a quality helmet with an aggressive design that stands out in a crowd.

ICON builds a type A personality helmet for those riders looking to make a statement; wallflowers need not apply.