The best UPF Shirts For The Woman Who Works Outside are worth the time it takes to search them out.
Finding The UPF Shirts For The Woman Who Works Outside is often trial and error.
Just knowing the basics about how the rating system for UPF clothing works will allow you to make better decisions. With UV protection clothing, more of the sun’s rays are blocked, and you get more protection from the sun.
For example, a shirt with UPF 50 rating, will only allow 1/50th of the sun’s harmful UV rays to get through to your skin. Another way to think through this is this means this shirt will block 98 percent of the sun’s radiation before it reaches your skin.
The UPF rating is the system that will grade the amount of sun protection offered by any one garment. However, let’s call attention to the fact that this is more or less an honorary system. The FDA does regulate this segment of the sun blocking clothing, but at this point, there is little actual testing.
They can claim to offer huge amounts of protection. Most companies are concerned about reputation and work towards that goal. I call attention to this as a bit of a warning about outlandish claims on garments.
Your UPF shirt will only protect the area it covers. This means that you will need long sleeves, a collar, and a longer body and tail to cover more skin. This is how the shirt protects you, by keeping the sun off your skin.
This also means leaving the sleeves down to cover your arms. The only way it can work is to leave it on your body, covering your body. This makes the preferred looser fit more able to keep you cooler in the hot times of the year.
Changing your mind and habits can make a difference between healthy skin and skin with areas that will allow skin cancers to appear. Sun blocking clothing can only work for you if you wear it and were it properly.
Do You Know How Your Particular Shirt Needs For Your Work?
When you work outside, doing anything in the outdoors you’ve probably complained more than once about having to coat yourself with sunscreen and keep reapplying it when you are out in the sun.
Especially in the warmer times of the year when you are sweating, and having to towel off frequently. You are aware that you should wear sunscreen, but it’s so easy to forget to reapply it or delay reapplying when you are out in the sun. UPF shirts for the woman who works outside are a game-changer.
That’s right, clothing that can protect you from the sun’s dangerous rays is now a possibility. And if you are wondering how that is different than, well, regular clothing, and if these new kinds of shirts work, read on.
Most cotton work shirts provide about a UPF of 5. That’s because most of the clothing we wear is a loose weave, especially in the warmer months, and allows visible light through the fabric of your shirts to your skin. While a shirt that offers level 5 of UPF is better than no shirt at all, you will need to have more protection from the sun to avoid skin cancer.
How Your Work Shirt Should Be Different
With UPF or UV protection clothes, the weave in the fabric is tighter.
UV protection shirts are made from a unique fabric engineered to help create a barrier that keeps out the sun’s rays.
UV light will get through the looser weave of most regular clothes, and in some cases can travel directly through your regular clothing.
With UV protection clothing, more of the sun’s rays are blocked, and you get more sun protection. (Repeating the example from above), a shirt with UPF 50 only allows 1/50th of the sun’s harmful UV rays to get through to your skin. This means it blocks 98 percent of the sun’s radiation before it can reach your skin.
UV protection fabric can look and feel like athleisure or activewear and is often made into hats, leggings, or shirts. Then there are truly luxuary fabrics that give you full protection with style. A work shirt is a basic garment and is important for protecting the trunk of your body.
Is A Black UPF Work Shirt Better Than A White Work Shirt?
Because of the tighter weave and higher thread count, a UV protection shirt usually feels more luxurious than your standard cotton shirt. To be considered sun-protective, clothing must have a UPF of 15-50+. A UV protection factor of only 15 is not considered enough protection by Skin Cancer. org.
The main thing to keep in mind while gathering the UPF for the woman who works outside, it to respect the sun. It can be very dangerous, and it can get dangerous quickly.
Now about the color, black will protect your skin as well as a white one. The difference in how comfortable you will be is important if you are working outside all day. Loose fit is also important to allow warmth to escape from your body. Allow your body to dry the moisture away.
Black, dark blue, and brown as well as deep red, purple, orange, and green are good color choices for sun blocking clothing. They will absorb the sun’s ultraviolet rays and turn the skin-damaging rays into warm energy.
As long as your shirt allows the air to move on your body, you will cool alright. Otherwise, you will get very warm. So these colors are better for the late fall, winter, and early spring here in Central Texas.
The cooler colors, white, and pastels will reflect the heat away from you, keeping you cooler.
A Few Features To Look For In UPF For The Woman Who Works Outside
For women who work outside, various tee-shirt styles seem practical. They move with you and can breathe. With a wide-brimmed hat that will keep your neck shaded and the sun off, a tee-shirt style can work in UPF clothing.
When choosing a tee-shirt for working outside, you of course need protection from the sun. If your shirt fits too tightly, you will stretch the fabric, and allow the sun in the holes where the fabric is woven together.
This fit thing is important and will be the difference in your shirt protecting your body, or in allowing the sun to reach your skin. This will result in areas that are more susceptible to sunburn.
The fit thing is not because I am jealous of you with your trim healthy body. While I am jealous that you have taken better care of yourself than I have, it is about protecting your skin. Do yourself a favor and wear UPF shirts that fit properly. If the sleeves are tight sun will probably enter the fabric and eventually cause a sunburn on your arms.
Often UPF Shirts Are Part Of A Uniform
With a button-down shirt for your work shirt style, in treated fabric, you can find shirts that will keep you safe all day.
Darker colors absorb the UV rays turning the UV rays into heat energy. In wintertime, you will stay warmer in a darker-colored shirt. In the summertime, very light and white colors will reflect more UV rays. Reflected rays can help you stay cooler.
Shirts also come with extra collars to pull up and block the sun from your neck. These shirts may also have hidden vents to allow more air through to cool and dry your body. Some have a 2nd layer over the back with extra vents. Extra vents to cool, the extra layer of fabric to protect.
How Long Does UPF Protection Last In A Shirt?
As the UPF protection on and in a shirt requires more engineering to make, it is safe to assume it may cost more than a plain shirt that doesn’t protect so well. Concern about how long the special finish will last on the fabric is a legitimate question.
Quality is usually guaranteed for 25 to 30 washes. This is another reason to read the label or hangtag on the garment for information about how to care for this garment. Follow the laundering instructions and see where you must be careful.
I was surprised that not all UPF or sun-blocking shirts can be dried in the dryer. I have one that dries on the clothes hanger, very quickly. If you are doing laundry for several in your family, having a jip lock plastic bag with the shirt tags in it will help you remember how to launder the specially treated shirts.
DIY Hack For Your UPF Shirt
If your shirt gets washed often, you can extend the life of the shirt with laundry additives. Using a detergent that has fabric conditioners or color brightness will cause the regular woven shirt to absorb the ingredients in the product that stay in the fiber of the shirt.
The conditioning and whitening or brightening will make the fabric thicker and give you more protection from the sun.
On the other hand, extra wear on your shirt that causes the fabric to be weak and worn and thinner will allow the sun through.
Do you wear a backpack of some sort when you are working outside? If so there will be wear where the straps rub on your shirt. Do you carry some sort of tool attached to a belt at the waist? Does that tool swing and sway as you move about your day?
Are you a mail delivery person with a mail pouch? You may need to use additives to keep your UPF shirt fluffed up a bit and block the sun from your body.
Remember how soft a laundry additive can make towels feel? It can do the same thing for the fibers in a shirt that has been washed and worn a lot. The fluffer threads in the fabric will make the weave tighter, and help keep the sun out.
Just A Reminder
Remember to launder correctly, according to the directions on the hangtag or the shirt labels. Get the most life and sun protection possible. Then use laundry additives to help boost the protection as your garment wears.
The additive is a good move for regular clothing from your closet that you might wear when out in the sun.
Is UPF Or Sun Blocking Fabric Better Than Sunscreen?
Most sun blocking fabrics are UPF 50 or higher.
That is more protection than your typical SPF sunscreen. The medical community does however recommend a mixture of both sunscreen and clothing to get the best possible protection.
To ensure optimum protection, women who work outdoors and wear tightly woven, dark-colored, long-sleeved shirts and long pants, as well as wide-brimmed hats will be able to protect their skin better. This covering all parts of the skin possible will help in protecting you from the sun.
Once you are ready for work with your UPF clothing or your tightly woven shirts and pants, with your sunhat and sunglasses, add sunscreen to all parts not covered. Your face and hands are two very vernable spots where skin cancers occur in many people.
Certain types of fibers used in your work clothing also treat the sun differently. This allows them to offer protection in different ways. Unbleached cotton will absorb UV rays, while polyester and silk with a high sheen reflect UV radiation.
More Women Choose To Work Outdoors
As we are seeing more and more women taking jobs that have them working out in the elements, finding ways to help them take care of their skin and prevent early aging is important.
Female Truck Drivers
Female Roofers
Post Office Delivery
Delivery For All To Your Door Delivery
Bus Drivers
Women Employed In Parks And Wild Life
Just a sampling of the job opportunities that women are now choosing.
Women are rated too often on looks and decorative value that may have. It is past time to let that outdated view go, and boldly be your amazing selves. UPF shirts for the woman who works outside are important for keeping your skin safe.
If snow and ice are a common occurrence each winter where you live? Sun blocking clothing becomes even more important. Did you realize that snow and ice almost doubles a person’s UV exposure?
Then to make matters worse, those dangerous sun rays that you thought you didn’t need to worry about in the winter become more problematic in these ice and snow conditions.
How Often Do You Remember To Reapply Your Sunscreen In The Winter?
Reapplying sunscreen in the summer is easier to remember. By wearing UPF clothing, you are protected everywhere you are covered in clothing. This is important if you tend to sweat quite heavily. When you sweat you will lose your sunscreen protection. Wearing loose-fitting sun blocking clothing is an easy way to stay protected from the sun.
However, it’s just as important to do this in the winter too.
Wintertime may not find you sweating quite as much, but the strong winds that your skin is exposed to strip the outer layer of cells from your skin.
While you are losing the outer layer of skin cells on your face and any other exposed area, you are also losing the sunscreen that you’ve applied onto those skin cells!
Not only does this mean that your skin is left without protection, but it becomes even more vulnerable since its natural protective barrier of mature skin cells is now compromised.
So don’t be surprised if you find that you actually need to reapply your sunscreen even more often in the winter than you do in the summer.
In our windy part of the world, wintertime is hard on skin. We often have warm muggy days with wind. End result is we may cover less of our arms and legs.
This makes wearing UPF clothing more important for skin protection. Windburn sets up a sensitive skin situation that will cause you to sunburn much quicker than normal. Pay attention to what is going on with your skin in your work environment.
Do I Need Different Sunscreen In The Winter If I Work Outside?
Have you been wondering if you can use your summertime sunscreen in the winter too? The answer is yes, so long as the sunscreen offers an SPF of 30 or higher. There are personal preferences that come to play here as well in the care of your skin. UPF shirts for the woman who works outside will probably change for the season if permitted.
Switching sunscreen once the temperature drops to find a formula that works better for you should be easy to do.
As normally the skin produces extra oil during the warmer months, most tend to favor lightweight sunscreen formulas that provide you with the needed protection, without leaving your skin greasy or heavy.
However, in the winter months when the skin is usually a good bit drier, you may need a thicker and richer sunscreen.
Do You Question Using Additional SUN Protection In The Wintertime?
Most of us find that using just sunscreen is usually not enough to give your skin all of the UV protection you need. For those who really want to keep from aging, as well as having skin cancer, get into the habit of following additional sun protection measures too.
Keep your skin covered with suitable UV-protective clothing.
Working outside calls for UV-blocking sunglasses to keep your eye area safe.
Hats are great for protecting the head and ears. They can be comfy in winter and summer. And yes, you should have sunscreen on your face, neck, ears, and nose.
Sami’s Take On UPF Shirts For The Woman Who Works Outdoors
For the women who do work outdoors, there are problems taking care of their skin. Because nobody wants to be dealing with sun-damaged skin, it is absolutely vital to commit to wearing sunscreen all year. Yes, even in the darkest depths of the winter months.
You’ll be protecting your skin from wrinkles and discoloration, plus, most importantly, skin cancer. This will make a winter skin protection plan well worth the effort.
Because covering your skin with UPF clothing is so important to the overall protection finding shirts that work for you. Search for sunscreen with moisturizers, and sunglasses that really fit you.
Your sunhat will also probably change in the wintertime, but again is an important part of your skin protection. In fact, a sun hat and sunglasses are more important than a sun blocking shirt! Every day, protect yourself.
I think that we as women have too long put off doing anything for our skin. We wanted to be tan. Plus, we didn’t want to look dorky in a sun hat. We just didn’t get it! How important taking care of our skin is.