Men stink. I mean that literally, as in body odor. Unfortunately, I am not immune to this condition, what a drag. In fact, after a long day of hiking, sometimes my shirt stinks too. Luckily this is not so much of an issue with the new Long Haul Western Shirt by Patagonia. Not only is the shirt extremely well vented, it is also treated with Polygiene, a fancy, high-tech, medical grade mystery substance that helps prevent the bacteria that cause odors.
When I first read about this I thought, “well, this should be fun to try out”, so I started wearing this shirt whenever I could. I wore it while I walked the dog, and while I worked in the yard. I hiked in it, camped in it and even slept with it as part of a makeshift pillow. The one thing I didn’t do was wash it. Instead, I hung it up on the back of a door to “air out”. And through it all I conducted a very scientific evaluation wherein at the end of each outing I placed the shirt in front of the olfactory sensors built into my head and measured the amount of odor accumulation. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I have been sniffing this shirt for the last four weeks.
Here is what I have found out. It is not perfect. It took a while, but the shirt eventually started to smell. Keep in mind, my test conditions purposefully avoided deodorant, and for a three-day stretch showering in general. So the fact that it didn’t start to smell sooner is rather impressive. Also, when I say smell, I’m not talking about please burry that shirt in the back yard kind of smell… I’m talking about maybe you don’t want to put your nose in the armpit of this shirt anymore kind of smell. But, here’s the great thing, it took days for this to happen, and after about 8 days of heavy wear, I simply rinsed it out in the sink, sans soap, and it was good as new.
Add to this the fact that it took less than two hours to air dry and you have yourself an ideal travel shirt, trail shirt, whatever kind of shirt you want it to be. The cut is comfortable. The venting and lightweight fabric (with 25-UPF* sun protection) help keep you cool and it has snaps instead of buttons (Yay!). It also gets the eco-friendly merit badge because less odor means less laundry and less laundry means less water usage. And that’s a good thing for everyone.
The good:
- Polygiene helps prevent odor causing bacteria
- comfortable
- lightweight fabric + venting = great breathability
- packs down small
- quick drying
- Snaps (who doesn’t love snaps)
- less laundry, less water
The bad:
- body odor, but you can’t blame that on the shirt
Available from Patagonia for $89.00 in bleached stone or navy blue.
The more you know: UPF stands for Ultraviolet Protection Factor. The measurement indicates the fractional amount of UV rays that pass through the fabric (or sun screen), a rating of 25 indicates that only 1/25th , or 4%, of the suns harmful rays reach the skin.
boring stuff: I was provided with a free review sample, this in no way affected the opinions expressed in this review. All images via Patagonia website.