Most of us pay attention to what we put on our skin. We read the ingredients in face wash, moisturizer, and sunscreen.
Underwear gets a fraction of that scrutiny, even though we put it on every morning and wear it for hours.
Look at the label inside a pair you own and you may find polyester, nylon, elastane, or some combination of the three.
We decided to look more closely.
Polyester is plastic
The polyester commonly used in clothing is polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a form of plastic.
There are good reasons it is used in clothing. Polyester is strong, lightweight, relatively inexpensive, and quick to dry. But a material does not stop being plastic because it has been made soft.
One laboratory study found that antimony used in polyester production was released from polyester textile samples into artificial sweat solutions.
The study does not show that wearing polyester underwear causes harm. But when a material is going to sit against your body all day, we think it is worth knowing what it is.
A label doesn't tell you everything
The fiber itself is only part of the story.
Dyes, finishing agents, adhesives, and other substances can be used to turn fiber into a finished garment. Some disperse dyes used on synthetic textiles, for example, are recognized contact allergens.
None of this makes synthetic clothing inherently dangerous. It does make clothing more complicated than the few words printed on a fiber-content label.
Read DermNet's overview of textile contact dermatitis
Why we chose Supima cotton
We didn't need every question about synthetic fabric to be settled before deciding what we wanted next to the body.
We chose cotton.
More specifically, Aquve's core garment is 100% Supima cotton, exclusive of the elastic waistband.
Supima is American-grown, extra-long staple cotton. Its fibers average about 1.5 inches long, compared with roughly one inch for the most common cotton. The longer fibers contribute to smoother, stronger yarn, softness, and resistance to pilling.
Supima represents less than one percent of the cotton grown worldwide. Every Aquve garment carries the official Supima hangtag.
We weren't interested in using cotton simply so we could put “cotton” on a label. If this was the material we wanted against the body, we wanted to choose a particularly good one.
Learn more about Supima cotton
100% cotton can still move
One way to add stretch to underwear is to blend cotton or other fibers with elastane.
Aquve takes a different approach.
The give in our fabric comes from the way the cotton is knitted. Jersey is made from intermeshing loops of yarn, allowing the fabric to stretch and conform without blending synthetic stretch fiber into the core garment.
The elastic waistband provides hold and recovery. The cotton jersey provides the natural give.
See how knit construction works
Start with what touches the body
Material isn't the only thing that matters in underwear. How it fits and how it works with the body matter too.
We'll get to those.
But when we started questioning something men put on every morning, material seemed like the right place to begin.