REI almost hits it out of the park with the Screeline Plaid button up shirt

Excellent work, Doug.

Hi Chad,

For your area of the country, i most prefer linen-cotton blends of about half and half.  But 100% cotton is fine too.

Humidity or lack of, as well as temperature, is a big factor in what materials work better than others in those different conditions.

Your welcome Ian.  I plan to sew some sleeves onto it.  Bleaching it lightened it a little, but i don’t want to overly damage the nylon fibers.

I got Doug poem, it’s a good day.

Mags link is well worth watching.

Katherine, hemp and linen are extremely similar in physical structure and overall characteristics (the main difference is that hemp fibers tend to be larger/more coarse than linen fibers, and thus rougher in feel).  Both are quite absorbent and actually have a higher initial moisture regain than cotton.

However, that does not completely determine how quickly they dry, or more accurately the time in how dry or wet they feel.  Wool absorbs even much more moisture than cotton and linen/hemp, but it has the interesting property of being able to absorb a good amount of moisture without feeling sopping wet unlike cotton.

Linen/hemp are the plant equivalents of wool in the natural world.  This is because the fiber structure is that of round, absorbent, but rather hollow fibers.

They both can absorb more moisture than cotton without feeling sopping wet, but also give up moisture faster than cotton because there is less solid material absorbing moisture.

I find that silk actually holds onto moisture more than hemp/linen.  There are good reasons why most of the pioneering, earlier Caucasian explorers of Africa and the tropics around the world, often wore loose fitting, thinnish, breathable all linen wardrobes.  At the time, it was the best stuff to handle the very high amounts of sweat and odor, due to the very high temps and humidity.

Now we have synthetics, which while they don’t absorb much moisture and dry faster and more completely than any natural or semi natural materials, they also have their own issues like odor retention.  Also, a number of studies have shown that people tend to prefer the feel of natural fibers (except larger wool fibers or wool with scales still attached) on their skin over synthetics.   This only changes when a very high amount of wetness is involved, which synthetics generally deal better with.

But what happens when you combine a majority of synthetic with a minority of say linen or hemp?  Ah, it’s like combining red and blue–magic happens, violet majesty appears and you get a higher level where the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.  (yes, i’m waxing poetic about fibers and materials, but to some extent it’s a philosophical reflection of the macrocosm and larger reality and how it relates to the microcosm, and as some of the ancients use to say, “As above, so below”).

What happens when you’re in a dry climate with little to no humidity?  You want the material touching  your skin to hold onto moisture to prolong the evaporative cooling process which helps to keep you cooler longer, which helps you to sweat less overall.

In a word, relativity.  Let’s get outside of overly linear and in the box thinking/perceiving.  In any case, half hemp and half polyester, is going to have different characteristics than hemp with a good amount of silk.

Devil is in the details Hk, that’s why i specified “Screeline Plaid”.

Not at all related, but we use to have a housemate whom had a cat named Hk.  I asked her what it stood for, she said “Hipster Kitty”.  After finding out HK was more than a bit of a hellion, i told her two things.  One, that she shouldn’t have named him that, and two, he was well named.  But what came first, the chicken or the egg (or in this case, the HK or the hellion), and could a rose be known by any other name and still smell so sweet?

I needed to add something to my REI order to get the $20 bonus card, so I got one of these shirts.  It arrived and the fabric looks and feels great.  Better than any synthetic shirt I own (which isn’t many). I’ll probably use it as a summer travel shirt.  It seems too nice to take hiking, at least until I wear it out.  Thanks for the tip.

When it comes to technical fabrics, the exterior conditions they are performing in is  the key element.

I live near the Canadian Rockies and nylon and polyester are not worth much to me. I live in wool, even in mid summer. The climate is dry and volatile dropping from one temperature extreme to another with an odd variation of precipitation patterns in between. (Summer snow storm anyone?)

Any fabric or blend can work, in the right conditions. Cotton kills in an Alpine situation but it is great in arid climates. Wool is ideal in alpine areas, but I pity the poor sucker slugging it out in the rainforest.

As far as duribility, quality counts as does the users care during use. If you abuse an item it will not last as long as if it was well cared for. I suspect user contentiousness counts for a third of durability.

Being a wool user, nylon and polyester just stink to me. I really haven’t noticed one better than the other but they both seem better than straight cotton. That said I think most of my poly items are Microban.

This shirt sounds great in the conditions it’s being used in.

These are currently marked down. Picked the lighter color one up today for $26 in store.