Right about the time you think you have it all together, your five-year-old son talks you into skipping the swim shirt and hat and using sunblock instead.

I thought, “At least he’ll understand how much of a pain reapplying sunscreen can be, and then he’ll choose the swim shirt in the future.”

Now that he’s sunburned on his chest and back, I feel like the bad mom and wish I hadn’t given him a choice! (The sunblock, rated “KS Recommends” at the natural sunscreen review, did a decent job, but the white skin, direct sun, and pool time was just too much for it, along with the fact that I only hit the shoulders and upper back with the reapplication.)

Sun Protection vs. Embracing Sunshine

There’s much to be said for the health benefits of Vitamin D, and there’s even evidence that if you have enough Vitamin D in your diet, that too will protect your skin from sunburns. Many people claim we shouldn’t hide from the sun at all but rather seek out unprotected exposure to increase our Vitamin D intake. But if you haven’t gotten enough base tan by slowly working up to maximum sun exposure, who wants to risk a sunburn?

Our family has a pretty healthy diet with, I hope, more Vitamin D than most based on our raw milk consumption alone. However, I don’t know how to gauge the right amount of Vitamin D, and I don’t know that I’m willing to allow my kids to get sunburns just to test out the theory. Yesterday was a certified failure, even with the added protection of four applications of sunblock. My son just swam too much in the pool between the hours of 1:30 and 6:00 p.m.

My daughter, on the other hand, was out for the same length of time in her Nantucket Sun swim shirt and shorts, her Tunga bucket hat from Sungrubbies, and no sunblock whatsoever, and she does not have a sunburn. Did she get shorted on Vitamin D yesterday in comparison? Who can know – I certainly feel like she had to have gotten some sunlight anyway with all the outside time we had.

Please also see my thoughts on sun protective clothing advantages and disadvantages in general, including the fear factor, an application of the traditional foods paradigm to sunshine exposure and Vitamin D, advantages of swim hats and shirts, and the modesty bonus.

Sun Protective Fabric: Is there a Safety Hazard?

On the tags of one of the swim suits I received from the companies I worked with for this review, I read the fabric content: “80% Polyamide, 20% Elastane.”

Shucks, I thought. I don’t recognize either of those terms.

It struck me that perhaps there’s a material safety risk with the fabrics in the sun protective clothing, and I realized I had to research a bit into the technology of the industry.

Mostly, the UPF on sun protective clothing (Ultraviolet Protection Factor, means about the same as SPF does for lotions) is determined by the tightness of the weave. Other factors include the color of the fabric, weight, and stretch (from an explanation of UPF ratings at Coolibar, and corroborated by the other companies). Some companies add zinc oxide into the fabric in ways that it cannot wash out, like Coolibar’s ZnO Suntect cottons. Cotton has a looser weave, so to have a high enough UPF, it needs some help.

When there’s no treatment, it’s likely that the fabrics used are a polyester blend. The polyamide is nylon and elastane is spandex, which of course are synthetic plastics, but generally aren’t targeted for being hazardous or toxic, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a swimsuit made of anything radically different than that.

I’m fairly confident that the fabric in sun protective clothing is not going to be a risk factor unique enough to take into consideration.

The Review

I am very pleased to have worked with five companies for this review, two of which manufacture their own products (Coolibar, Nantucket Sun) and three resellers (Alex & Me, Sungrubbies, Solartex). Here’s what we thought of the products we reviewed from the first category:

Coolibar: Children’s Hat and Men’s Rashguard

Coolibar manufactures their own fabrics and products, which is important to remember when evaluating the items. I immediately loved the look and feel of the Chlorine resistant bucket hat, but I was so unsure about the lack of a chin strap that I bothered a few more companies just for a hat with a strap to keep it on. This hat has an adjustable Velcro tab that pulls tightly on a strap hidden from view inside the fabric. It’s a very clean look, seen here:

As the weeks wore on with my son’s Coolibar hat and we figured out how to fasten it tightly, I found some surprising results. Although the hat does come off at times when jumping into the pool, it has stayed on through:

1. A 20+mph speedboat ride
2. Very, very strong winds at Lake Michigan (enough to send the sand pricking into our legs)
3. Jumping and diving into 2-foot waves in Lake Michigan

I’ve actually come to appreciate the Coolibar hat more than the two I received with chin straps, because:

1. • It’s adjustable to fit multiple head sizes
   • It’s staying on great anyway
   • It’s perfect for kids who dislike things touching their neck
   • When a chin strap hat gets tossed around, it still falls off and has to be plunked back on, you just don’t have to chase it around. Unless a sun hat is also snug enough to stay on most of the time, the chin strap doesn’t save the hat plunking parent all that much time and energy.

Here my daughter demonstrates the hat’s sun coverage compared to a standard issue child’s swim hat from a big brand store:

One of the added benefits of this adjustable hat is that it really can work for multiple head sizes. Ours is a size S/M, rated for ages 2-8. I always figure the longer a child can wear an item, the most cost savings you’re going to get, so I love that factor!

If you have a small child who will take their hat off themselves and throw it overboard, the Coolibar hat won’t cut it and you’ll want a chin strap. But for slightly older kids who will leave their hats on, I’m very pleased to recommend Coolibar’s style. UPDATE: Coolibar is offering free shipping on orders over $75 with coupon code “MELTING” through July 29th.

Men’s Rash Guard or Swim Shirt

I often wonder how much money we’ve saved on sunscreen because my husband has worn a rash guard for three or four years now, not to mention the time he didn’t have to spend applying cream to his back and chest. Males are notorious for either (a) forgetting sunscreen altogether, (b) neglecting to reapply and/or (c) using too little sunscreen to be effective. For guys, I’m a huge proponent of the swim shirts.

The shirt from Coolibar really looks sharp on him, and the steel gray is very manly. My husband says it really keeps him cool at the beach in spite of the darker color, because it stays wet longer than his skin would. It breathes well and dries quickly on the line.

The review was going to be 100% positive until last weekend, when my husband wore a backpack to the beach and we discovered one major disadvantage of the matte fabric: it doesn’t hold up well under any abrasion, even that as simple as a backpack rubbing against your back. You can see the rubbed area on his lower back, along with a few long, thin scratches on the upper back and one 4×1-inch swath on his front that looks like the wrong fabric got stuck to some Velcro, even though there was no Velcro involved:

I was so disappointed, because this really wasn’t wear and tear beyond normal use, and his previous rash guard never had this sort of problem.

On the Company

Coolibar has great customer service, quick shipping, research-driven production, and a commitment to sun safety and quality. They have a very comprehensive line of clothing that goes well beyond the beach, and they also sponsor a school hat program to try to get bucket hats and sun protection information into the hands of school officials and teachers at a reduced cost.

Nantucket Sun: Arm Sleeves

I was intrigued by this concept, that we were going to receive a family set of just…sleeves. It’s a unique product, and my first thought is that it seems fear mongering, that the only market for the sun sleeves would be people who are truly afraid of the sun. As a balanced perspective sort of gal, I am not afraid of the sun (too much), and I find that our family has never burned on our forearms, so I didn’t really get it.

My son, lover of all things new and novel, fell for the child sun sleeves immediately and and wore them right away. He’s definitely the one in our family who gets the most use out of them. I am still having mixed feelings overall.

My kids did their modeling job:

Disadvantages:

• They still make you warmer than bare arms (much!)
• Can’t help if you’re wearing a tank top or standard women’s swimming suit anyway
• They stay up well, but not perfectly. You’ll spend some time tugging them up your arm
• The sleeves of course will make your Vitamin D synthesis impossible, but for your face. It is important to get some unprotected sun exposure to reach the body’s daily Vitamin D needs.

That said, I think the sleeves still have a place. It’s easy to imagine how a skin cancer survivor or someone who has watched family members battle the disease would be eager for simple, comprehensive sun protection. There are also people who, for reasons of medicinal reactions or various skin or heart disorders, really cannot tolerate sun exposure. For this small subset of the population, the sleeves are a fabulous invention.

If I had children with incredibly fair skin, and I wanted them to get some sun for Vitamin D but not too much, the sleeves are a nice way to go out with bare arms and then cover them once adequate sun exposure has been reached.

I don’t think I’d purchase sun sleeves for my family, but now that I have them, I’ve brainstormed some alternative uses:

• Bug protection without chemicals
• Great for cold skin when in air conditioning, and smaller to pack in a purse than a sweatshirt
• Good for biking or other sporty activity: if it’s cold when you start, especially, you can peel them off as you go (or vice versa)

And they do look mighty snazzy. If you’re wearing a T-shirt and the sleeves, no one would know that you didn’t just have a long-sleeved shirt underneath. Kids can also wear the adult sleeves on their legs, which we did for a walk to protect from mosquito bites.

I’ve also washed my son’s after our camping trip, and they came through the wash (hang to dry) acceptably.

One piece of advice if you order for your family: get everyone a different color. It makes it easier to pull the right ones out of the pile that way! Mine are the same color as Leah’s, and I’m constantly holding them up to check the length when I get them out.

YOU CAN WIN TWO PAIR IN THE SUN SLEEVE GIVEAWAY!

Swim Shirt and Shorts

We also received this swim shirt and shorts for my daughter to test out (the reason she didn’t get burned yesterday).

After our first season last year with a girl and girl’s bathing suits, I was quickly dismayed at how much skin is showing and needed sunblock protection. My kids have both always worn hats out in the sun, but little girls’ shoulders, back and chest seemed so exposed to me. I couldn’t wait to try something with some more coverage this summer.

We ordered a size larger than we needed, which is one of the many benefits of this kind of suit over a traditional girls’ style. Whereas a girls’ swimsuit hanging low because it’s oversized would look shabby, this suit ought to last three years or so on my petite little one, which is good because the two pieces together run just under $40.

The only problem I’ve run into so far is that the suit, along with almost all the other UPF swimwear I received, advises not to touch abrasive surfaces. Yeah, right. Like you can keep a 2-year-old at the pool or beach away from anything that will snag the fabric.

The swim shirt is showing its wear already after only 3-4 uses, and the pink stitching on the shorts is fuzzy. It’s not the the stitching is coming out at all, but it’s just snagging and fuzzy all the way around. The white stitching on the shirt is perhaps a different type of thread, because it’s not having the same reaction. Both pieces have been washed in the machine already, rinsed often, and soaked to try to get the smell out after dearest daughter made a mess in her swim diaper and got in the pool afterward. Yuck.

On the Company

Nantucket Sun, founded by a concerned mom and remaining women-owned, manufactures all of their own products and only uses UPF 100+ to block all the UVA and UVB rays. (They do carry a few other brands as well.) All of Nantucket Sun’s brand clothing is made in the USA yet passes Australia’s strict standards for sun protection. They get their fabrics tested and recertified every 6 months, going above and beyond requirements.

To Be Continued…

Come on back tomorrow for the remaining three companies, Alex & Me, Sungrubbies, and Solartex, along with $250 in sun wear giveaways! (HERE is that review.) Be sure to check out the sunblock giveaways where you have five chances to win!

Disclosure: I received free products for my review, but that in no way reflects upon my opinions, and the companies have no sway over what I say here.