Sweatbands Detail Page
From bottom to top: Leather, Un-dyed Leather, Cotton Twill, CoolMax®
Three 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 roll-up hats. Not recommended for active-wear hats when regular heavy sweat is expected.
CoolMax®—Synthetic hi-tech fabric designed to wick away sweat. It is used extensively in athletic uniforms and under-layers. The sweatbands are black. They feel sort of fuzzy, nice. They are thin and almost weightless. Even wet with sweat, they will dry quickly and not keep a wet band against the hat straw.
Recommended for active-wear hats when regular heavy sweat is expected. Recommended for roll-up hats.
Cotton Twill—Black cotton twill. Has a little more structure than the CoolMax® bands. Natural fiber. Very comfortable.
Recommended for roll-up 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.
CoolMax®—As noted above, I’m a natural fiber sort of guy so it was only after many rave reviews of the CoolMax® bands by clients did I put one into a personal hat. As John Prine sings: “Pretty good. Not Bad. I can’t complain.” I am a gifted complainant, so that is significant. I have these bands in several personal hats now and have recommended them.