What's That Smell?!
In the modern world of corporate apparel, polyester is becoming much more popular than cotton. These items are most commonly known as "Dri Fit" apparel. To be clear, what makes any apparel considered dry fit apparel is the use of polyester. Polyester is a closed fabric, which decreases water absorption. Personally I love the new dry fit apparel fabrics that have been coming out over the past few years and I hardly ever run into people who don’t like them. However, when I do hear negative comments, they all have the same theme: “They smell bad.”In the past, I had never encountered the bad smell and figured these comments to be coming from smelly people, maybe? After I heard this a few more times, though, I thought I should check into all the dry fit shirts I owned. Sure enough, I did have 1 or 2 that did smell funny right out of the wash. After researching the topic, I found the reason for this smell problem was quite simple. Polyester does not mix well with moisture as it is well known for its moisture wicking capabilities. While it does a good job of keeping moisture out, it doesn’t typically do a good job of keeping bacteria out. So, when ordering a dry fit shirt, always make sure it has an Anti Microbial finish to avoid the smell. That will keep the bacteria away and the odor out. It’s still up to you to use deodorant though… I suggest Old Spice because their commercials are awesome!Also FYI… I used quotations around Dri Fit apparel in the first sentence because they are often called many different names. But again, the main component that makes the dry fit is that they are polyester.
Here are some of the most common names that all mean the same thing:
- Tech Tees
- Dri Fit
- Stay Dri
- Cooling Shirts
- Performance Shirts
- Moisture Management
Here are the benefits of the fabric:
- More vibrant coloring
- Moisture aversion
- Easy care/less wrinkling
- No shrinkage.
That’s all the knowledge I have for now, until the manufacturers start coming up with different names for the same fabric and we’ll have to write this all over again….- Matt Oye