Pour a cup of water on these babies and they’ll remain dry as a bone. Splash Cola or Gatorade directly on to them and all that colored liquid simply beads up and rolls off the fabric. Hose them down with a high pressure stream and they still won’t hold a drop of water. It sounds like magic, but it’s all pure science.
The technology used to create these shirts is an extreme form of water-proofing that involves modifying the fundamental nature of surfaces, making them super-hydrophobic. The company website states: “Our shirts emulate the natural hydrophobic properties of the lotus leaf.” Instead of getting absorbed by the fabric, liquids just form into droplets that slide off of it.
According to Lewis Pitchford of Threadsmiths, the cotton fibers of the shirt are woven with a new ‘water-fearing’ nanoparticle technology. Unlike other shirts that are simply coated with hydrophobic sprays that last for only a few washes, the Cavalier shirts will repel water for up to 80 washes.
“Most people are pretty amazed when they see it,” said Pitchford. “The Cavalier shirt contains no aerosol applications and no dangerous chemicals, and is completely safe to wear – as a shirt should be,” the Threadsmiths website states. And if any other residue is left on the material, it can be removed by simply wiping or rinsing it off with water.
The company is presently taking orders for the white version of the T-shirt – they’re available for men and women at $65 a piece. “At the moment we’ve got only T-shirts, but we’re open to suggestions about what else to make,” Pitchford added. “It could have application for kids’ clothes and other garments.”
The Cavalier definitely sounds like an impressive invention, but it’s not the first hydrophobic t-shirt ever made. Last year, we wrote about a San Francisco-based student who started a Kickstarter campaign for the perfect hydrophobic ‘Silic’ shirt. A bit of competition in this new sector can’t hurt, though.
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