The moisture wicking vs. cotton undershirt sweat challenge continues on!
If you remember from last week, we’re trying to find out if, while wearing an undershirt, sweat will reach an outer layer of clothing faster if you’re wearing a moisture wicking undershirt or non moisture wicking undershirt.
The Test Subject: CoolClothingUSA
This time, I put the 100% Coolmax moisture wicking v-neck undershirt from CoolClothingUSA to the test.
The Test
Same 10K cardiovascular work out on the elliptical while wearing two layers of shirts. First layer is the Coolmax moisture wicking v-neck undershirt, size large.
Overall fit is generally the same as the v-neck from Duluth, but I did notice more sweat around my collar area of the top t-shirt after the workout, so I did a quick measurement and confirmed that the v-neck on the Coolmax undershirt is about 2″ deeper/lower than the Duluth undershirt (7″ versues 5″ respectively). It’s also about 3/4″ wider and 2″ shorter in overall length than Duluth’s undershirt.
Second layer, a typical oversized t-shirt (and the same shirt I used last week to keep the test consistent).
Initial Results
Sorry I couldn’t take any pictures, but not only does my camera phone take crappy pictures unless there’s lots of light, the Coolmax undershirt is white so it was really hard to actually see the sweat stains. So, I’ll just describe it.
As I mentioned above, I immediately noticed a much bigger sweat ring around my collar. Considering the v-neck on the Coolmax is 2″ deeper than the others, that made sense. But to reiterate an earlier point I made, you’ll likely need to avoid wearing v-necks if you sweat a lot in your chest area, or at the very least, try to wear v-necks that aren’t as low cut.
The second thing I noticed was that there was more wetness on the shoulders of the undershirt than with the others. If you think about it, that’s where you will definitely have more direct undershirt-to-body contact than of any other area, with exception to your upper back. While there was no noticeable sweat marks in the shoulder area of my outer t-shirt, I can definitely say that there was more sweat on the outer side of the undershirt in the shoulder area.
Other than the two things above, I didn’t notice any other significant differences in overall performance. The underarm area was similarly wet as when I wore the Duluth undershirt, which if you recall was slightly wetter than when I wore the Alfani 100% Cotton undershirt.
Although, I will have to say that once I took off the undershirt, I did notice that it seemed to dry pretty quickly — which is what moisture wicking undershirts are supposed to do.
So with all things pretty equal, more moisture/sweat did make it to the outer layer of the 100% Coolmax moisture wicking undershirt (in some areas) than with the 100% Cotton Alfani undershirt or the 64% Cotton/36% Coolmax undershirt from Duluth Trading.
I’ll keep testing other types of undershirts and report back my findings! I think I’ll give the Execwear Nylon/Lycra blend and Vdri undershirts a whirl next.
Thanks for reading!