air
One simple question: how much can a fabric let through?
There is a sensation you have never named, yet you recognise it at once. The moment sweat leaves the skin and becomes air.
a pragmatic experiment
Science has confirmed hemp’s breathability many times over. We wanted to see it with our own eyes.
The idea is simple. Boil water. Pour it into a carafe. Wedge the fabric between the water and the cap.
The boiling water is trapped. It evaporates upwards, through the fabric.
The more the fabric lets through, the more breathable it is.
It is the same with your body. You sweat, and the sweat evaporates. The more the fabric lets through, the less sweat stays on your skin.
the results
Ten minutes each: linen, cotton, our Burro Canapa® and our Iperleggera. Everything that passes through condenses on the cap. So the heavier the cap, the more breathable the fabric.
Burro Canapa® let through at least 20% more than the cotton and linen T-shirts. Iperleggera, 30% more. And those T-shirts were lighter than ours.
the science
Weave, density, finishing: they all count. But the fibre counts most. You only need a microscope to see why.
A synthetic fibre is a strand of plastic. Smooth, solid, closed. Water slides over it and stays on the skin.
Hemp is the opposite. Hollow inside, like a straw, its surface crossed by tiny grooves. It pulls sweat away from the skin and carries it outwards. And it absorbs vapour into the fibre itself, before it even becomes sweat.
That is why the fabric stays dry to the touch. And why it never feels sticky.
Hemp also releases heat quickly, so it feels cool on contact. In summer you notice it immediately.
Few fibres come close. Merino wool is the other one: a different mechanism, the same result.
