The textile wonders, which are worn directly on the skin, cool the body during physical exercise and keep it warm in cold weather. You can only maintain their function with good care. And this is how you ought to wash your functional underwear:

Washing functional underwear, but properly

Washing functional underwear, be it sports bras or ski underwear, is not too difficult. If you follow a few tips, you will enjoy it for much longer.

• Laundry made of synthetic fibres can be washed together with normal laundry and colour or heavy-duty detergent (depending on the label) usually at 30 or 40°C (rarely at 60°C).
• It is better to wash linen with wool in combination with fine and woollen textiles and use an enzyme-free fine or wool detergent. Pure woollen laundry must be dried ‘only’ on a rack.
• Before washing, turn the functional underwear inside out and close buttons, zippers and velcro fasteners.
• It is better not to spin-dry or to spin-dry merely briefly. Otherwise, shirts and shorts can wear out and lose their shape.
• For drying, laundry feels most comfortable on a line or on the clothes drying rack. If necessary (as rarely as possible), you can dry them in the tumble dryer, if the manufacturer allows it.
• The thinner and lighter a shirt is and the less elastane, wool and cellulose it contains, the shorter the drying times ought to be.
• Washing additives make sense for people who sweat a lot and unpleasantly or suffer from skin diseases.

Materials and Properties

• Elastane: This fibre, which is mostly made of polyurethane, makes textiles elastic, but extends the drying time.
• Polyester (PES)/Polyamide (PA): petroleum-based synthetic fibres. PES is softer, while PA is more elastic and robust. PES can store about 5% of its weight in moisture, PA 2 to 3%. Both transfer moisture quickly to the outside, they dry very quickly, are light, have good dimensional stability and do not crease. Furthermore, the fibres have a relatively high UV protection (compared to cotton).
• Polypropylene (PP): Is also petroleum-based, hardly absorbs any moisture (less than 1%), dries quickly and is not as soft as polyester. In relation to weight, PP is very warm.
• Polyacrylic (PAC): Is used less often in outdoor textiles.
  Synthetic fibre functional underwear is usually made of polyester or polyamide (or nylon) or a mixture of the two. Nylon is the higher-quality form of polyamide, is more tear-resistant than polyester and stores slightly more moisture.
• Lyocell/Tencel/Modal: These synthetic fibres have their natural origin in cellulose, including beech wood. They are silky-smooth, anti-allergenic, and provide excellent air conditioning. But they dry rather slowly.
• Sea Cell: Soft, anti-odour cellulose fibre with brown algae, which contains natural vitalising substances.
• Wool: Mostly from merino sheep, as it is very odour-inhibiting. Wool is warm and absorbs up to 33% of its weight in moisture – including the moisture the body produces for cooling. Merino wool still retains a dry surface but dries more slowly. Wool can absorb heat from the environment thanks to its endothermic properties. Merino underwear with more than 50% merino wool is more suitable for outdoor people who do not sweat at all or hardly sweat at all.

Functional wear vs. cotton

No question about it, cotton shirts look chic and are comfortable to wear. But only as long as you don’t sweat. If it becomes strenuous, the tour takes longer and once the sweat is in the shirt and shorts, the cotton won’t dry quickly. If you wear a cotton base layer under a functional or softshell jacket with a highly breathable climate membrane, they will make you feel wet and humid. Functional shirts and underwear, on the other hand, create a pleasant microclimate on the skin by transporting sweat and moisture away from the surface of the skin in a controlled manner. Sweating cools the body, but the moisture does not accumulate and cling to the underwear. The fibres used here have good moisture transporting properties (also known as ‘wicking’) and – unlike cotton, for example – do not absorb much moisture themselves. They, therefore, dry very quickly. Although cotton is used in outdoor clothing, it is not suitable as a stand alone in functional underwear.

A tight fit is important for good functioning: optimum moisture transport is only guaranteed if the trousers and top rest against the skin. Body fats, creams, deodorants, sweat and dirt disturb the fibre structures, especially when they accumulate in the fabrics. They also mean that you have to wash your functional underwear more often. In addition, the fabrics are finished or processed in such a way that a capillary effect draws moisture to the surface of the fabric.