Sweatbands Detail Page
From bottom to top: Brown Fine Leather, Un-Dyed Fine Leather, Cotton Twill.
Two Types of Sweatbands To Choose From
Leather—Made from the finest sheepskin roan leathers. Vegetable tanned—important. Un-dyed so even if you sweat clear through one, and into the next county, you can’t possibly transfer any dye from the leather to the straw. Printing on the leathers is by heat only, no inks or metals.
Leather is the default sweatband for most of my hand-blocked Montecristi hats. A fine hat should have a fine leather sweatband.
Not recommended for foldable hats. Not recommended for active-wear hats when regular heavy sweat is expected.
Cotton Twill—Black cotton twill. Natural fiber. Very comfortable.
Recommended for active-wear hats when regular heavy sweat is expected. Recommended for foldable hats.
My Personal Reviews
Leather—The leather sweatbands are great. In contemporary idiom: Sweet. They are soft, comfortable, premium quality. The vegetable tanning and no-dye are extra steps, taken because the hats deserve them. The leathers look good in the hats. Most of my personal hats have leather sweatbands.
Cotton Twill—I am a natural fiber sort of guy. So I put these bands in my personal hats intended for travel or knocking about. I have worn this type of band in Thailand and on the Equator in Ecuador. I sweated heroically in both locations. I sweated through the sweatband, through, the ribbon, through the straw. Even wet, these bands are comfortable to wear (at least for me). I had no issues with shrinkage or color bleeding or anything. But I think cotton anything could shrink under some conditions. If it does, ten bucks plus postage plus the story of how/why it shrank and I’ll put in a new one.
Sweat Happens
If you go sweat in your hat, here’s what to expect, how to deal with it.
A lot of times the whole point of having a hat is because you want some stylish sun protection while you exert yourself more than is reasonable doing something that seems important at the time. Say…climbing El Castillo at Chichen Itza on a sunny day in June. Or trying to lift a double Mai Tai from a prone position on Ka’anapali Beach, Maui.
Does a bear sweat in the woods?
I’ve been testing and experimenting for years, trying to figure out what sort of sweatband is most effective at actually preventing sweat from reaching the straw. The answer is—nothing.
Okay, you could put on one of those Olympic swimmer rubber caps before you put on your hat. That would keep even tsunami level sweat from reaching the straw. But my best guess is that you might get a little uncomfortable on a sunny August afternoon. (If you decide to go that route, remember to put the swim cap on when you measure your head and try on the size test bands.)
Leather sweatbands can hold back a lot of moisture, but serious sweat eventually will find its way through even thick buffalo hide. The thin, soft sheepskin roan leathers we use are much more comfortable. But if you sweat heavily, it will soak through the leather and reach the straw.
The Cotton Twill sweatbands we use are very comfortable, but a seriously heavy sweat will soak them. Two of three twill bands we use have a thin plastic backing. That might slow the inevitable.
What to do after the fact
If you get your sweatband good and wet, here is what you might do.
- Wet a clean sponge in fresh water. Squeeze it to get it to a manageable level of wetness.
- Pull the sweatband gently away from the hat as you fold the sponge in half. Like a duck closing its beak, you get the band between the two halves of the sponge and wipe around the entire circumference. The purpose of the fresh water is to wipe away the salts from the sweat.
- Wipe the sweatband with a clean towel right after wiping it with the sponge.
- Rinse the sponge and squeeze it to just damp. Use it to gently wipe the straw behind the sweatband.
- Gently dry the straw with a thin cloth.
- Fit an oval cedar disk into your hat while it dries. The disk is the same as your hat/head size. It is the equivalent of a shoetree. Keeps the sweatband stretched to the right size and proportion.
- Always remember to proceed gently. Soft hands. Try not to distort or change the shape of the hat while you are doing this stuff. Yes, of course that’s impossible.
Now you know. Some of that might work. Or it might just be a lot of bother. Might work for some, not for others. Sunspot activity may affect effectiveness. Or not.
Ribbon If you sweat through the sweatband and into the straw, the ribbon is most likely wet as well. After it dries, the high water mark will be limned in a thin white line of salts. Clean sponge, fresh water, squeeze to damp. Wipe gently. Hold the ribbon in place while you wipe gently.
When the stains get bad
If you are a frequent and/or enthusiastic sweater, the stains will become obvious eventually. Certainly to others, possibly to you.
If the straw is still strong, I may be able to take the band out, take the ribbon off, and give the hat a good washing. That sometimes lightens the stains a little. I have the same kind of soap they use in Montecristi. The only kind they use for the hats.
Sometimes I can turn the hat around when I re-block it and put the worst stains in back. Might give you a few more years with a good friend.
This is a good occasion to consider treating yourself to a new hat while the other one is in the Hatspital™. Plan ahead. Order your new hat. When it arrives, put the old one in the same box and send it to me. Be sure to fill out and enclose the Blocking Services Form.
Text and photos © 1988-2012, B. Brent Black. All rights reserved.
