Which is cooler, long or short sleeved shirts?

[Paul_B]

I got it too late for my morning walk but I wore it out in the afternoon/evening. Still 29°C at 5:30pm. On the drive out with the window open it was cooler than my usual wicking T-shirt. The breeze went right up the sleeve and out of the buttons. Made a bit drive very nice.

Then sitting eating award winning fish and chips with the sun to my back the collar right up and my organic airflow Tilley T5 on, possibly lightweight version I can't remember. Well they both helped me keep comfortable.

After getting the as shirt today I ordered a ls shirt and it's due tomorrow (Friday). It's the nylon exped 2 shirt.

The dark green as shirt today cost £14.69 delivered next day from Amazon UK website using prime (lockdown necessity for the kid in an emergency). RRP is £30 I believe but even cragghoppers own direct selling site seems for £15 with delivery on top for lower value orders. Amazon selling and fulfilling the order was cheaper by a whisker.

Today I ordered the long sleeve shirt from outdoorgb with next day delivery. It cost pennies over £40 with the extra cost of next day delivery. RRP I believe is £65.

Craghoppers is one of those brands you never pay full price!!

Anyone know how different Rohan expedition shirt (nylon, polyester mix) and craghoppers adventure 2 shirt (100%nylon) really are? The nylon of cragghoppers might be less prone to pong due to no polyester but they look almost the same spec other than that fabric difference. They should perform equally apart from the polyester pong factor I reckon.

 

[Paul_B]

PS my partner said it looks like old man's shirt. Dropped by parents house and one of them asked if I'm off on am expedition to the jungle!!

Does anyone thing a dark green shirt is old men's clothing or just for expeditions to the jungle or other adventurous locations that are warm? I just want a collar to protect neck and hopefully a cooler shirt than protects from the sun. Not sure fashion bothers me but old men's clothes jibe did!!

 

[MikeLA]

If we get more hot weather I would be interested to know from you how the craghopper kiwi polyester you mentioned above on the day out and the nylon exped 2 shirt.
Just can’t imagine nylon being as good but you never know .

 

[MikeLA]

I wear green all the time, have done since my late teens ! couldn’t give a hoot what others think. Definitely not old mans colour though. If you wear lighter colours I own a cream/pebble craghoppers shirt nice as well but can show up the dirt and sweat more

 

[Paul_B]

I'm curious which will be better. Although the sleeve length might make the biggest difference.

I wear synthetic t-shirts when out walking in summer usually. Polyester and nylon. Usually I wear the the same base layers year round layered up. First thought was that the actual polycotton fabric read no warmer or cooler than the synthetic t-shirt I usually wear except for the buttons. They do seem to have an effect. Also the looser fit probably made it cooler.

The polycotton was a little stiff I thought. I guess that's the weave in shirts being a tight, plain weave. My t-shirt is a more open weave I think with stretch to it. The stretch is a big plus as the polycotton shirt felt tight if I reached forward or up. Not as good for higher activity like scrambling or climbing I reckon. It's about picking kit for activity I guess.

The last polycotton item I owned was trousers. I found they weren't was nice to wear as later fully synthetic trousers. No stretch or movement and if I wore gaiters walking in always ended up with them being wet through where the gaiters were. That with good quality goretex and event gaiters too. Am I going to end up with obvious sweat patches a bit darker than the rest of the shirt? Very wet back from rucksacks that take a while to dry?

 

[TLM]

Just can’t imagine nylon being as good but you never know .

With synthetic fibers the actual fiber diametre is important, the finer the better. The cross sectional shape also has some effect (Coolmax).

 

[santaman2000]

.......The last polycotton item I owned was trousers. I found they weren't was nice to wear as later fully synthetic trousers. No stretch or movement and if I wore gaiters walking in always ended up with them being wet through where the gaiters were. That with good quality goretex and event gaiters too. Am I going to end up with obvious sweat patches a bit darker than the rest of the shirt? Very wet back from rucksacks that take a while to dry?

For pants nothing will ever beat pure denim blue jeans.

 

[Paul_B]

I thought blue jeans were only worn by miners but cowboys in the wild, wild West never used to wear them in the old days. It's a modern invention I heard. Marlboro Man or earlier.

 

[santaman2000]

I thought blue jeans were only worn by miners but cowboys in the wild, wild West never used to wear them in the old days. It's a modern invention I heard. Marlboro Man or earlier.

Nope. Levi Straus made the ORIGINAL ones from sailcloth simply because it was all he had available. His ORIGINAL market was indeed the miners. However they grew from there and by the turn of the 20th century they were mostly available as bib overalls and were the norm for farmers. Regular cut blue jeans had become the cut for cowboys by then. By the time the Greact Depression rolled around one or the other was pretty much standard for most working men. By the 1950s they were the uniform for every boy born in that decade on through the 1970s.

 

[Paul_B]

Actually he moved to san Francisco to set up a west coast branch of his brothers dry goods store in 1853 but the riveted trousers were made by a local tailor using fabric bought from Strauss. He needed a business partner and Strauss was his choice probably because he has a good reputation and was successful. That was 1873. The tailor got the idea because the wife of a local farmer or labourer asked him to make trousers that didn't fall apart the tailor used rivets at weak points.

I doubt the sail cloth as the only fabric he had was true because he was a successful with a dry goods business. Hardly going to be successful if he didn't have dry goods like fabrics to sellThe jeans were made for labourers and i believe worn by miners for the same gathering hard wearing reason as labourers. Cowboys at the time of the wild west era, 1860 to 1890s I believe is the date range, did not wear blue jeans. I believe it's because they looked down on labourers and miners.

The Levi Strauss website gives you thre history of its founder and his iconic garment.

 

[santaman2000]

Yes, but the sailcloth was the only thing available for the first batch (Not necessarily the only thing he could get five time for deliveries)

The cowboys themselves were a hodgepodge of laborers, miners, and ranch hands who saw a chance for a good pay if they completed a cattle drive. Once the drive was over most found either returned to their jobs or found another one. I’ll have to look up the exact era again but somehow I don’t think it was as late as the 1890s as the railroads should have replaced them before that.

Looks like I was wrong. The cattle drives lasted until 1910.

 

[santaman2000]

@Paul_B If you decide to go for blue jeans now or in the future it might be wise to avoid Levi’s. While there’s no denying their history they’ve morphed into a fashion item nowadays and are overpriced for what they are. Other brands such as Dickies, Lee’s, or Carhart are as well constructed (if not better) at a fraction of the cost. Wranglers still make good jeans as well but like Levi’s, they have their fashion styles too. In either case the fashion styles are often cut too slim and result in restricted movement.

 

[Paul_B]

I buy cheap and cheerful jeans. I once had levis bought on America for me and they lasted a while. Looked at replacing and I found out i could get next jeans that would last 20 years for the same price. They certainly weren't for the labourer back when I last considered them. Usual thing, a lot cheaper in USA than over here. Was 20 years ago.

I'm cheap and cheerful in normal clothes but my outdoor kit is a lot better. I figure a £10-20 jeans splitting somewhere on the streets is one thing but outdoor kit failing in winter in the lakes or highlands is a other.

Once went jeans shopping to kill time on a business trip with my boss in Sweden. I would rather do something else but he needed jeans. So we ended up in a jeans shop that sold several hundred different Jean's. Many makes and many styles. They even had four modification tables one of which had a table sewing machine on it the others had pins, fabric pieces, rivets, studs, rivet stars, sequins,a table with rough surfaces to distress your jeans, etc. Another world as far as I'm concerned and not one I can be bothered with.

 

[santaman2000]

I buy cheap and cheerful jeans. I once had levis bought on America for me and they lasted a while. Looked at replacing and I found out i could get next jeans that would last 20 years for the same price. They certainly weren't for the labourer back when I last considered them. Usual thing, a lot cheaper in USA than over here. Was 20 years ago.

I'm cheap and cheerful in normal clothes but my outdoor kit is a lot better. I figure a £10-20 jeans splitting somewhere on the streets is one thing but outdoor kit failing in winter in the lakes or highlands is a other.

Once went jeans shopping to kill time on a business trip with my boss in Sweden. I would rather do something else but he needed jeans. So we ended up in a jeans shop that sold several hundred different Jean's. Many makes and many styles. They even had four modification tables one of which had a table sewing machine on it the others had pins, fabric pieces, rivets, studs, rivet stars, sequins,a table with rough surfaces to distress your jeans, etc. Another world as far as I'm concerned and not one I can be bothered with.

Yeah. I basically have three places to buy my jeans and I’m going for the hard wearing qualities.
1) At the Base Exchange on base (they carry Dickies and have no sales tax and will price match anywhere off base)
2) Walmart, in their workwear section (they carry Dickies jeans and work clothing)
3) Tractor Supply (they carry Carhart jeans and work clothing)

 

[Paul_B]

Well after getting a craghoppers kiwi shirt sleeved and expedition long sleeve the weather went cooler for some time. Recently I remembered them and since I'm not good in heat (I blame the Swedish part of my ancestry) I tried the kiwi as shirt no cooler than ordinary t-shirt in cotton but a Rab synthetic t-shirt was a lot cooler.

It got hotter and humid too, so I got the Expedition shirt out. Instantly cooler and manageable. Kiwi is polycotton without rear vents and is heavier weight than the exped shirt. Cooler sleeves down but not buttoned up at the cuffs. I think the thin nylon made the difference not the fabric in this case. There's an OS map sized, vertically zipped pocket with mesh inner. Open that up and together with the mesh vent at the back it was nice.


Looking at Rohan equivalent I don't think it's as good. Anyone got both?

 

[MikeLA]

Thanks for that, will look at the expedition. Must have some Viking blood myself, prefer the cold and always have problems on holiday with clothing trying to find a cooler solution. Tried cotton, poly cotton and nylon t shirts none so far work except the only solution so far on holidays at least is for me to size up to a baggy lose cut

 

[Herman30]

I say it again, linen is the right material for hot weather. Shields the skin from sun shine and let the wind blow through the fabric.

 

[TLM]

The idea is to reflect away as much of the incoming radiation as possible (after all it is about 1 kW/m²). The rest is to let air circulation to evaporate sweat as efficiently as possible that is what's cooling you. Evaporation from clothes is most efficient with tight fit the loser the worse.

So the optimum would be a fully reflecting layer 2 cm from your skin and underneath something that retains the distance and lets air circulate as well as possible. Probably looks weird but so what.

 

[Paul_B]

Sorry expedition is the Rohan version, the cragghoppers is the adventure II

Adventure II

There's the kiwi available in linen / cotton mix too, but I think the design of the nylon adventure makes more of a difference. I've got the polycotton kiwi in short sleeve and it feels hot compared to the adventure. For me there's the back vent and the lighter fabric. I wonder if the higher strength of the nylon allows for a lighter weight of fabric??

If the wind blows through the linen shirt is it not likely that it has a loose weave? If that's the case then it's UPF would be low. Something to consider I think.

I went on the skin cancer org website and looked up their fabric advice. They say dense weave cotton like denim or synthetics are best. Also dark or bright colours, light colours don't absorb UV light that well. Unbleached cotton hasn't lost natural chemicals which absorbs UV rays.

I'm more conscious of the sun now. My granddad got skin cancer which ultimately spread. I usually wear a Rab base layer t-shirt. I've realized that whilst not showing up as sunburnt my body under that t-shirt feels like it caught the sun after a walk. Now I'm wearing my long or short sleeved cragghoppers shirts. Both different shades of green with a upf of 40.

Out of the kiwi as and the adventure ls I'd say the adventure is better in comfort, fit, coolness and design. Plus it doesn't show up when you sweat so much. Actually I don't think I sweat as much. Clothing that's wet has reduced sun protection apparently. I might buy the short sleeved version of the adventure shirt

 

[swe_lapland]

What an amazing thread title Cooler in a fashion sense I thought and I was about to reply that it depends on the arms! I mean, if you have some cool tattoos or beefy gym-arms, you might wanna wear short sleeves.

Personally, I dont like cotton t-shirts and Im not posh enough to own alot of wool. I get those "functional sports t-shirts" out of some synthetic material. I think short sleeves works the best. Mind you I live in the far north and seldom have to struggle with alot of really hot weather. Plus is those shirts dry fast.