When it comes to sweating, I mostly talk about solutions the prevent sweat-through.
In other words, products that are designed to minimize the amount of sweat that reaches your outer shirts.
When sweat reaches your outer shirts (or pants), if you’re wearing anything other than white or black, you can see visible sweat marks on your clothing.
Visible sweat rings or sweat patches, whether they are present in the underarm area (pit stains), on your back, torso, or butt and back of your legs, is something that most people try to avoid.
As mentioned above, one tactic is to wear something that prevents the sweat from seeping through, like wearing a hyperhidrosis sweat-blocking undershirt. Another tactic is to reduce the sweating, by using special 7-day antiperspirants like SweatBlock.
Be sure to check out my Top 9 Sweat Management Solutions article. It contains information about sweat blocking undershirts, sweat proof underwear, various antiperspirant & sweat-reducing options, and much more.
While not fully obvious, the other option is to wear outer clothing that is designed to dry really fast, so that any visible sweat marks would be only temporary.
There are some companies like Mizzen+Main, Ministry, & Coregami that make moisture wicking dress shirts.
Essentially, they are dress shirts made from performance fabrics, like polyester, that dry faster then their cotton equivalents.
So, if the shirts get wet from sweat, they’ll dry fast(er) and any visible sweat marks will disappear quicker than if the person was wearing something made of cotton.
What’s interesting is that many companies make dress shirts with performance fabrics, but for some reason, they aren’t really marketed all that well.
The new guys, like the ones listed above, focus on the use of performance fabrics for comfort reasons — which is much more compelling in general than, let’s say, no ironing.
Within this dry-fast, focus-on comfort dress shirt category, there’s another company I recently learned about called Lawrence Hunt.
Lawrence Hunt
A few years ago Lawrence Hunt (link) launched a Kickstarter campaign introducing their cotton/polyester hybrid dress shirt.
The company took inspiration from the underarm panel design of baseball shirts, and created a primarily Egyptian Giza cotton dress shirt, designed with fast-drying moisture wicking underarm panels.
So, even if sweat did reach your underarm area, it would dry fast, and be less likely to show sweat marks.
The Kickstarter campaign exceeded it’s initial goal of $15k, and Lawrence Hunt dress shirts started shipping in late 2014.
As of this writing, they have 10 men’s dress shirt options, priced at $78 or $88.
Features:
- 100% Egyptian Giza Cotton Body
- Moisture Wicking (Polyester), 4-way stretch fabric underarm panel
- Polyester made from recycled PET bottles
- Underarm panels sublimated to match body fabric (pretty smart!)
- Wrinkle resistant
- Designed in Detroit
- Manufactured overseas
Photos
Women’s No Sweat Dress Shirt
While their main offering is for men, the company is also planning to launch a woman’s dress shirt, with the same moisture wicking underarm panels.
Per the company, their woman’s No Sweat dress shirt offering will be available in about two weeks.
Does It Work?
I’ve been in regular contact with a reader who’s husband has a fairly severe case of hyperhidrosis (heavy sweating), and who has recently tried a Lawrence Hunt dress shirt.
Good Morning!
My husband wears dress shirts under a suit every day and sweats a lot – his Thompson Tee undershirts come home soaked.
I just got him a Lawrence Hunt dress shirt and he really liked it, but his regular Hanes undershirt was soaked even if we couldn’t see it.
I am now looking around for an undershirt.
I have read some of your reviews, but I am not so worried about fit or feel, but more about how fast it would dry and prevent him from being soaking wet.
So in this case, the Hanes undershirt got soaked, but the Lawrence Hunt dress didn’t show the sweat marks in the underarm area.
Keep in mind, these dress shirts have the fast-drying fabric in the underarm area, so if you sweat elsewhere, like chest or back, sweat marks may still show on that area of the Lawrence Hunt dress shirt.
Wicking Undershirts & Heavy Sweating
I’ve long took the position that heavy sweaters (people with hyperhidrosis) should avoid wearing wicking undershirts.
While wicking undershirts will dry faster, they will also be prone to pass more sweat to the outside shirt, thus making visible sweat marks more pronounced.
I mentioned this to the reader above, but did say it’d be worth trying a lightweight wicking undershirt, like the Uniqlo AIRism Mesh Undershirt.
She picked one up for her husband, and reported back with the following:
Just to get back to you, we ordered the Uniqlo mesh undershirt and he really liked the way it felt.
He tried it with the Lawrence Hunt shirt, and said the sweat just got through faster and ended up bleeding into the shirt part that doesn’t dry as fast near the underarm area.
So for those folks who have a more severe case of sweating, it may be best to avoid wicking undershirts.