Home → Blog → Resources → 10 of the Best Types of Fabrics for Hot Weather
With summer approaching and the temperatures rising, it is time to consider ways to keep cool throughout the day and into the night. One of the most effective ways to regulate your temperature is to choose what you wear and sleep in carefully. The fabrics we use daily have a significant say in how fresh we feel and whether we will overheat. Consequently, they influence comfort, health, and performance. Whether you’re talking about everyday clothing, business attire, sports and athletics wear, or bedding, the fabrics we surround ourselves with determine how cool, comfortable, and dry we stay when things warm up.
In hotter weather, the right fabric will promote airflow, improve temperature regulation, wick away sweat, and even protect against potentially damaging UV rays. A poor choice of fabric will trap heat, make you sweat more, and retain that sweat in the fibers, negatively impacting your comfort. This can also lead to skin irritation and unpleasant odors, as it provides the perfect growth conditions for bacteria.
In this guide, we explore suitable fabrics for hot weather, detail the best materials for staying cool, and highlight some you should avoid. We then examine innovative technologies like Polygiene® StayCool that push fabric performance even further.
For a fabric to excel in warm conditions, it needs to excel in several areas. The best hot-weather fabrics will perform well in all the categories below. However, most fabrics involve you making a compromise or selecting a particular fabric based on anticipated use.
Breathable fabrics ensure air can pass more freely between the skin and the ambient environment, preventing it from getting trapped and gradually increasing in temperature. Improved airflow aids in heat dissipation and is usually the result of open weaves and the use of natural fibers.
Moisture-wicking textiles are highly effective at drawing sweat away from the skin and onto the material’s outer surface, making them an excellent fabric for hot weather. Here, on the outside of the fabric, it evaporates more quickly, keeping you dry and comfortable and ensuring the fabric does not soak up the moisture and become too heavy.
Heavier fabrics are more likely to trap heat and often weigh you down, making movement more strenuous and increasing body temperature. Lightweight fabrics let you move more freely and feel much less restrictive. They also tend to be associated with improved airflow and breathability.
Brighter and lighter colors reflect heat rather than absorb it. Choosing fabrics in lighter colors will help you stay cooler when you are in direct sunlight.
When ambient temperatures start to rise, we inevitably begin to sweat more. And that moisture can stay on our clothes for a long time if you are not careful. Saturated clothing will often result in uncomfortable chafing, too. Quick drying materials ensure the fabric doesn’t stay damp for too long. This can also be useful in activewear that needs to be used several days running, such as on multi-day hikes or bikepacking trips.
Heat and moisture create the perfect environment for bacterial growth. And odor-causing bacteria are responsible for some pretty unpleasant smells. With this in mind, high-performance hot-weather fabrics will also feature some form of antibacterial protection. This could be a natural by-product of certain natural fibers or added to the textile via a solution like Polygiene® StayFresh™.
Some fabrics are simply better suited to hot weather than others. In many cases, certain types of the same fabric will perform better in warm conditions. For instance, not all cottons are alike. Higher-quality cottons are much more likely to deliver superior warm-weather performance.
Features: Natural, breathable, and soft.
Use cases: Great for everyday wear, casual shirts, dresses, and bed sheets.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Features: Made from flax fibers with an open weave and a crisper texture.
Use cases: Summer suits, shirts, dresses, and bedding.
Features: Derived from bamboo pulp. A soft and eco-friendly fabric that’s excellent for hot, humid weather.
Use cases: T-shirts, underwear, bed sheets, and loungewear.
Features: Made from wood pulp. A smooth texture and a more sustainable manufacturing process.
Use cases: Dresses, tops, athletic wear, and bedding.
Features: A semi-synthetic that mimics silk and is remarkably lightweight, making it a top choice for warm weather.
Use cases: Summer dresses, blouses, and shirts.
Features: A natural fiber with a textured finish. Popular for its eco-credentials.
Use cases: Shirts, casual wear, and eco-conscious fashion.
Features: A type of rayon made from beech trees.
Use cases: Loungewear, underwear, and athletic wear.
Features: Typically involves blending polyester with a natural fiber. This material is excellent for hot weather and is often engineered for sports or activewear.
Use cases: Workout gear, hiking clothing, and travel wear.
Features: Cotton-based with a puckered texture.
Use cases: Casual shirts and summer suits.
Features: Lightweight plain-weave cotton, similar in appearance to denim.
Use cases: Shirts, dresses, skirts.
As mentioned above, there isn’t really a perfect do-it-all summer fabric. Each textile excels in a specific area, and this often results in compromises elsewhere when choosing fabrics for hot weather. For instance, polyester performance blends are typically excellent moisture-wicking fabrics. But that comes at the expense of breathability. As such, you need to match fabrics to particular use cases.
If you’re participating in strenuous exercise or outdoor activities, you need hot weather-friendly fabrics that wick sweat away from the skin, dry quickly and benefit from odor-resistance and UV protection features. Typically, this means selecting a polyester performance blend or moisture-wicking Tencel.
When it comes to sleeping in warmer weather, people often opt for bamboo, cotton, or linen. These fabrics are breathable, allowing air to circulate and dissipate while preventing moisture build-up on hot and sticky nights.
Summer business attire is tricky as many relaxed and breathable fabrics are more casual and lack the necessary smart finish. However, linen is an excellent choice, particularly when blended with other fibers to reduce wrinkling. You could also opt for other textiles enhanced with fabric cooling technologies.
If you’re looking for fresh and cool summer fabrics for everyday wear, just go with what you feel best in. Often, this means cotton or chambray because of their lightweight and comfortable natures. However, a laidback linen shirt is an equally good option and rarely looks too formal.
Entirely synthetic and unblended polyester lacks the breathability required to perform well in warm conditions. It traps heat, causing you to sweat more and resulting in unpleasant odors. We would only choose polyester-based products if they had been engineered for improved performance with additive solutions.
Nylon is similar to polyester in that it struggles when it comes to breathability. Unless it is modified for use in activewear, we would advise avoiding nylon in warmer weather.
Traditional wool traps and retains heat too well to be a good warm-weather option. Some specific types of wool, most notably Merino, are excellent moisture wickers and benefit from natural antibacterial properties. As such, some people will use lightweight Merino products when temperatures rise.
Acrylic tends to trap heat due to its complete lack of breathability, making it a poor choice for warmer climates. As a result, it often gets a little smelly unless treated with an anti-odor solution.
The temperature isn’t your only concern in warmer weather. You also need to consider sun protection. UV rays can cause serious skin damage and can penetrate thinner fabrics. With this in mind, you need to wear garments with built-in UV protection.
When participating in outdoor activities, look for clothing that is UPF-rated. This rating tells you how well the fabric blocks UV rays. For instance, UPF 50 blocks approximately 98% of these rays. Many of these garments also incorporate Polygiene® odor-control technology that prevents the growth of odor-causing bacteria. Doubling up UV protection and odor resistance is especially useful if you’re spending long days under the sun or when frequent washing isn’t practical. For this reason, it’s a popular option for multi-day hikes, camping, and fishing trips.
Even with breathable, moisture-wicking fabrics, there is a limit to what the textiles can naturally achieve. Fortunately, there is a way to boost fabric hot weather performance even further. Fabric cooling technology enhances thermoregulatory performance, surpassing the level of coupling natural fibers can achieve alone.
While diverse, these technologies typically work in the following ways:
This innovation is increasingly common in athletic gear, outdoor wear, and smart textiles.
Leading this next generation of textile cooling technologies is Polygiene® StayCool. A radically new textile technology that sets the benchmark for hot-weather comfort and performance, it features an innovative thermo-reactive polymer matrix that reacts to moisture by reducing the temperature of the fabric by around 2 – 3°C (4.3 – 5.4°F).
By lowering the skin’s temperature, Polygiene® StayCool provides a tangible cooling effect during high-output activities or scorching summer days. As such, manufacturers integrate it into Sportswear and activewear, everyday clothing, bedwear, and outdoor lifestyle apparel, among other products.
Cool and dry are essential, but so is freshness. That’s why Polygiene® StayCool is best used in combination with Polygiene® StayFresh.
Polygiene StayFresh™ is a silver-salt-based antimicrobial treatment that:
Integrating both Polygiene® StayCool and Polygiene® StayFresh into a product ensures users benefit from a cooling feel that minimizes sweating. Less sweating means odor-causing bacteria are deprived of the ideal growth conditions. Polygiene® StayFresh ensures they cannot proliferate, reducing the frequency with which you need to wash your items. In turn, you reduce your environmental footprint and benefit from longer-lasting products.
While fabric selection has an enormous impact on how comfortable you are in warmer temperatures, Polygiene® StayCool is fundamentally changing the way we design products for hot weather. Compatible with a wide range of textiles, including synthetics, cellulosics, and recycled fibers, it also benefits from flexible application methods like pad-dry, exhaust, garment-dip, or spray. This ensures it’s an incredibly versatile technology that you can use to improve thermoregulatory performance in an extraordinary range of products.
To learn more about our ground-breaking fabric cooling technology, visit the Polygiene® StayCool solution page or contact our experienced team.
