The future is plastics

If you are easily offended, leave now.  If you live in the real world, where people sweat and there is less than desirable consequences resulting from it, read on.

The statement (when applied to polyester, which is a plastic woven into a fabric) is both more and less true today than when it was uttered as a joke in the 1967 film, The Graduate.  More true in that we use more polyester today than in the 60's, less true in that you can no longer get a polyester leisure suit from the mail order catalog company of your choice.  Today, polyester is marketed to athletes and wannabees as technical clothing. I'm not into the hype, so I'm calling it polyester.


http://www.underarmour.com/shop/us/en/mens/apparel/tops/shortsleeve/pid1000382-Men-s-UA-Tech-8482-Shortsleeve-T/1000382-090

Speaking of the hype, "technical clothing" touts its "moisture transport" properties.  Meaning: when you sweat in polyester, the sweat moves through the fabric so it can evaporate.  I am a sweaty beast.  I grunt, I sigh, I sing along to my music in an endorphin soaked trance/rage, all while sweating through my clothes.  The "moisture transport" is the big benefit of polyester over cotton.  Cotton gets heavy with sweat, polyester really doesn't.

"Moisture transport" does have its downside.  It's not just water that's being drawn through the fabric, your funk is coming with it.  That's right, I said "funk".  I don't have another work to accurately describe what comes off a sweating body.  It's bad and we all know it, so we'll move on.  "Moisture" is a vehicle for your "funk".  "Funk" gets inside the "technical clothing".  Inside.  Cotton comes clean with a wash.  All of the bacteria and other general badness in your sweat comes out of cotton, polyster leaves a "funk residue" after a wash.  You don't notice the "funk residue" at first.  Over time and with repeated wears, the "funk residue" grows.  Then you sweat on it again and it's like a activating a chemical agent.  It's bad.  Really bad.  If you think this cannot happen to you, you are wrong.  It can and it will, but there is hope.


http://www.windetergent.com/
There are other products, that do the same thing, but WIN is what I can find at my local Dick's Sporting Goods.  WIN washes out the funk.  Period.  No funk.  My wife uses it on my cotton towel and washcloth, for good measure.

I love my polyester.  It's great in the summer for outwear.  It's great in the winter for a baselayer (a less sissified way of saying underwear).  It's great all the time in the gym.  I do use cotton,  (If I did not plug cotton, some of the farmers who harvest 92,000 bales of white gold in home town in 2008 might be disappointed) I just use it for other things, like every other non-athletic clothing item I own.