When summer hits the Pacific Northwest, people go bonkers. A typical sunny Saturday might consist of rock climbing in the morning, longboarding in the afternoon, and grabbing a six-pack before paddling out to a distant beach to watch the sunset.
Your cotton thrift store tee isn’t going to cut it on days like these. Thankfully, a new breed of synthetic wool shirts offers a lightweight, tough, breathable, and stink-resistant alternative. Combining the durable, sweat-wicking qualities of synthetic nylon with the super-soft, odor-killing abilities of Merino wool, these shirts raise the bar for blended synthetic tees. For several weeks, I took selections running, rock climbing, tooling about town, and through the most grueling endurance test of all—the washing machine.
Spinning yarn made from synthetics and Merino isn’t new. But Nuyarn is. The New Zealand-based company creates a two-ply yarn with merino wool drafted around a nylon core, laying the fibers along the same orientation instead of twisting them. This makes the yarn both stronger, with greater mechanical elasticity, and lighter than conventional ring-spun varieties.
Trew Gear
Wearing the Trew Gear Superlight Nuyarn Pocket Tee ($59) in public makes you feel like you’re an Internet celeb, or at least somebody who’s a little bit famous. The striking colorways and fashion-oriented design details draw a lot of eyes, and even the occasional high five. The extreme softness and clinginess of the Trew shirt meant that it absorbed and dispersed sweat quickly. It survived three turns in the washing machine with no pilling or shrinkage.
Icebreaker
The Tech Lite Short Sleeve Crew ($75) from Icebreaker is equally striking to look at. The T-shirt uses Corespun technology, which wraps merino wool around a nylon core in a conventional ring-spun yarn. This allows the fabric to preserve the feel and microbial properties of merino wool, while lending it extra durability. It did hold up in the washing machine. However, at 150 grams per square meter, it is noticeably heavier and hotter than the Trew Gear’s 125 g/sm, and the thicker merino yarn didn’t wick sweat as effectively.
Voormi
I was particularly excited to try Voormi’s Short Sleeve Merino Tech Tee ($70). The Pagosa Springs, Colorado-based company aims to bring a manufacturing economy back to mountain towns. Their T-shirt uses dual-surface technology to locate a thin layer of wicking polyester under the wool.
Unfortunately, the Voormi tee was underwhelming. It had very little elasticity and the polyester against the skin was uncomfortable. The shirt’s female-specific fit rucked up while I was climbing, and it shrank in the dryer. None of the shirt’s manufacturers recommend that you do this, but everyone does, even if only by accident. None of the other shirts suffered any damage. However, the wicking layer was very effective.
Duckworth
If you’re looking for the highest-performing shirt, or trying to achieve A Look, the Trew Gear shirt is your best bet. But for everything else, the Duckworth Vapor Tee ($60) was a surprisingly high performer. At 130 g/sm, it looked and felt like a regular T-shirt.
But even though the shirt’s looser fit meant that it didn’t absorb sweat as effectively off the skin, I stayed exceptionally cool. Even while climbing, an activity that makes most people want to rip all their clothes off. I can only guess that it’s due to Duckworth’s Vapor Wool yarn that blends wool with polyester and cellulose, a plant fiber that the company attributes cooling properties to.
While it’s fine to wear Trew Gear’s soft, clingy, conspicuous tee while engaged in impressively burly activity, I was more comfortable in the Duckworth while hanging out afterwards—which, come to think of it, is probably the worthiest summer activity of all.
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These Wool-Blend Tees Will Keep Your Outdoorsing Stink-Free
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