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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
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    Summit Park, UT
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    106

    Best Base Layer for Hairy Chest?

    I'm sure I'm not the only hair chested dude who has issues with certain base layer materials. I love merino for it's natural anti-odor properties, warmth, and comfort, but the latest Smartwool merino base layer shirts I've worn must have a high friction coefficient and are usually high-static, causing my chest hair to be pulled in all direction under my layers.

    Has anyone cracked the code on low-friction and anti-stink base layers for hairy dudes?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Dystopia
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    21,053
    https://www.cilice.co.uk/product/goatskin-hairshirt/

    Fight fire with fire

    Get medieval
    . . .

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
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    LV-426
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    21,123
    Quote Originally Posted by powder11 View Post
    if you have to resort to taking advice from the nitwits on this forum, then you're doomed.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2020
    Posts
    5,522
    Following


    (For the sole purpose of making myself feel better about not having a lick of hair on my chest)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    northern BC
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    https://reduto.ca/neat%20hair%20remo...%3A+%7B4-ne%7D

    A lot a products in this ^^^ link
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    Emerald City
    Posts
    544
    I've been using REIs stuff without issue

    https://www.rei.com/product/153827/r...ens-tall-sizes

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    is everything
    Posts
    1,943
    Try rubbing minoxidil on your chest and back. I’ve been able to grow my own organic base layer.


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Among Greatness All Around
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    6,628
    Wax (just like your skis...) I assume you have tried silk and the synthetics like UA Cold Gear or Polypropylene types of stuff??? Yes a few of the synthetics are much higher on the smell than wool ever will be.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    truckee
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    23,111
    I'm pretty hairy and I have 6 different base layers--all synthetic, no wool or semi wool--and none of them bother me. You know what bothers me--shaved chest hair (a number of cardiac echoes, one heart surgery) growing back. The pits do start to stink, that's why I have 6. But my cotton t shirts stink to, as do my pits by themselves. I haven't noticed the synthetics being particularly bad. Anyways, we're all manly men and women here (chest hair thread, right) and we're supposed to stink.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    The Fish
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    4,711
    I mean isn't it just a mid layer?
    a positive attitude will not solve all of your problems, but it may annoy enough people to make it worth the effort

    Formerly Rludes025

  11. #11
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    inpdx
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    20,197
    Manscaping might be in order

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    2,023
    Manscaping can make it worse. Chest stubble doesn't get along with tight base layers in my experience.

    I'm not the hairiest guy and I tend to use merino baselayers but I dry them in the dryer with dryer sheets on low to help deal with the static.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    1,951
    I feel like the chest hair should act as an insulator negating the need for base layer coverage at that spot. Maybe take a scissors and cut a big circle in the chest of your existing base layer?

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    livin the dream
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    5,761
    I’m of Greek lineage and have enough chest hair for a few lifetimes, but I don’t have this issue with smartwool or similar merino.

    I bet this is a bodywash or clothes detergent issue….


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums
    Best Skier on the Mountain
    Self-Certified
    1992 - 2012
    Squaw Valley, USA

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Ventura Highway in the Sunshine
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    22,431
    Quote Originally Posted by Falcon3 View Post
    I feel like the chest hair should act as an insulator negating the need for base layer
    By definition, wouldn't that much hair qualify as a base layer? With enough hair, one shouldn't need any layers. This goes back to my post in the Hike Nekkid thread. We didn't need base layers for the first few million years, why now? Of course we probably didn't ski much in the Pleistocene.

    I agree it is a constitutional right for Americans to be assholes...its just too bad that so many take the opportunity...
    iscariot

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    northern BC
    Posts
    30,879
    hiw much does a base layer do for ya is a good question

    I have never used mid layers under soft shell

    i was just wearing a patagonnia softshell (the one with the heatwelded seams that fell apart ) with no baselayer for a least a season, was up at the Asulkan hut in -25 and of course the big puffy goes on soon as I stop

    must have been something wim-hoffish going on
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Middle of Norway.
    Posts
    2,777
    Quote Originally Posted by Eluder View Post
    I mean isn't it just a mid layer?
    Truth right there. I do wool on top of chest and back hair, inside a pro shell for all temps, all season. If below - 20c,I add a woolen knit jumper.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    Emerald City
    Posts
    544
    Quote Originally Posted by Kopi_Red View Post
    I'm not the hairiest guy and I tend to use merino baselayers but I dry them in the dryer with dryer sheets on low to help deal with the static.
    Aren't dryer sheets bad for tech gear?

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    northern BC
    Posts
    30,879
    After they come out of the dryer I have used them with AQS or slowset 2 part to strengthen a repair,

    I have often refered to it as '"Ukranian fibreglass"
    Last edited by XXX-er; 01-19-2022 at 08:35 AM.
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

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