What Color Hides Sweat Stains the Best?
There are many clothing colors that hide sweat stains well but there are also quite a lot that accentuates sweat. Which is which and why do certain colors hide sweat stains where others don't?
Sweat stains are among the worst things to have on your clothes, so it’s understandable that you might want to hide those buggers. But if you have a lot of them, doing so can be difficult.
An astonishing number of colors accentuate sweat stains because they change their tone significantly when they get wet. Let’s get to know what types of colors change color dramatically and which ones don’t.
Best Colors to Hide Sweat Stains
It’s easiest to hide sweat stains by wearing very dark clothing. Very light clothing is also acceptable, though. Anything in between will accentuate wet spots. The best color to hide sweat marks with is black, followed by very dark blue and pure white.
Why do Clothes Change Color When Wet?
Wet clothes appear darker than dry clothes. This has to do with the amount of light that manages to reflect from the surface of the fabric.
Water bends light and lets a lot of it pass through. This is why we can see through the surface of a pond but colors and shapes underneath the surface are “warped”. Dry textile fibers do the opposite – they reflect a lot of it and let only some light through (without warping).
Wet textile fibers appear darker because they’re able to absorb more light than dry ones.
There is a third thing that happens with light though, and that’s absorption. So, here’s where it gets interesting:
Darker colors absorb much more light than lighter colors. In color theory, the metric that we use to quantify this is called luminance. The more luminant a color, the more it reflects light rather than absorbs it.
Black is the least luminant color, whereas white is the most luminant. All other colors lay somewhere in between, with more flashy ones like yellow on the top side of the luminance scale and blue more towards the bottom side.
Now, what happens when a textile surface gets wet?
Well, the light that would have otherwise passed through the tiny “air pockets” between fibers unbent and un-warped, now gets scattered (diffused), reflected multiple times, and eventually absorbed – a least a large part of it does.
And, as we’ve learned, if more light is absorbed, the surface appears darker (less luminant). This is why clothing that is wet looks darker.
Black Hides Sweat the Best
So, the more light is absorbed, the darker something looks. And wet textiles look darker because they absorb (even) more light.
Well, guess what? It’s hard to absorb more light if there’s not much left to absorb.
Black hides sweat stains well because it absorbs so much light that wet spots can’t make it look much darker than it already is. Therefore, black clothes won't make sweat stains show up as much.
Any color that absorbs less light than black – so every other color – won’t have as much leeway when stained by anything wet. Obvious, isn’t it?
Black clothes hide sweat marks the best.
There’s a flipside to black clothing, though: If you wear, for example, a black shirt (to hide sweat marks) outside in the sun during summertime, you might eventually have more sweat stains – and more noticeable ones at that – just because your shirt’s now uncomfortably hot.
Since darker colors absorb more light, they also get hot much quicker.
So yeah, dark colors are great to hide sweat stains, but not for those times where you truly sweat the most.
By the way, we discuss the topic of the effect of color on body temperature in a separate article, if you’re interested.
Now, if you don’t like wearing full-on black, we suggest opting for other very dark colors. Dark blue is a great alternative to black when it comes to hiding sweat spots.
Though not quite as effective as black clothing, dark blue clothing also can’t get much less luminant than it already is, so the effects of “de-luminating” by wetting aren’t super noticeable. Plus, dark blue is much less stark and overbearing than pure black – but who cares about color psychology… (We do)
Hide Sweat Spots by Wearing White
Yes, there is an alternative to wearing super dark colors to hide sweat spots: white clothes. But, spoiler alert, there’s a catch here as well.
Do you remember what we wrote about water bending and diffusing light to reflect off the fibers of clothing until a lot of the light is eventually absorbed?
Well, imagine fibers that are so white that they always manage to reflect all the diffuse light until there is none left to reflect.
This would in fact be the case if white clothing wear perfectly white – which it obviously isn’t. Just like black cloth isn’t perfectly black, white cloth is never perfectly white either.
So naturally, the effect of “endless reflection until there is none to reflect” is dampened, and white clothes do still absorb some light when wet.
Luckily for us, the whiter the clothing, the less it can absorb light when wet. So, the contrast of luminance between the dry and wet areas of the white garment stays low. In other words: You can’t see sweat stains on white clothes easily.
Oh, but there’s a catch, isn’t there? Sadly, yes.
Wet T-shirt contest.
Need we say more?
If you’re a heavy sweater, then wearing white clothes might not be the best idea for you.
Alright, let’s explain. As we said, water bends light while letting it pass through. And although this isn’t much of a problem if there’s a gap between the wet spot and the skin underneath, it becomes a problem if that gap suddenly disappears.
Light that passes through wet spots on lightly colored clothing reflects off the underlying skin and makes its way back through the garment to our eyes. Put differently: Wet spots on light clothing are see-through.
The closer the wet spot comes to the underlying object (in this case the skin), the more visible it gets. At full contact, we get close to full transparency since almost no light can be absorbed – whether by white cloth fibers or by anything else.
A thin, wet, and white T-shirt let’s what is underneath it shine through as if the shirt were non-existent.
Obviously, you don’t get the same effect with a dark shirt because darker colors manage to absorb the light rather than let it pass through the fabric.
So yes, white is a great color to wear if you wish to hide sweat stains. But only as long as you don’t let the wet spots touch your skin. Hey, no one said this was going to be easy…
Luckily, there’s a fix for this issue: Wear an equally white undershirt underneath your white shirt.
Though this might not be the most comfortable solution for some people, it is a great one. Seriously. Light has trouble finding its way through multiple layers of clothing. Even if both items are wet.
So, if you’re a heavy sweater then this might even be your best option – especially outdoors in the sun where dark clothes tend to become unbearably hot. You might be better off with white even though you’d be wearing an additional layer.
Which Colors Accentuate Sweat Marks?
All colors that have a medium amount of luminance will accentuate sweat stains strongly. Prominent examples for shirts are middle gray, baby blue, and dark red.
Put simply: almost any color that is not super dark or super light will change color significantly when wet. But the more the color’s luminance lays towards the middle of the scale (50%), the more it will be accentuated by wetness.
Bold red (~54% luminance) is one of the worst colors to wear when it comes to sweat marks.
“Why?”, you ask.
Well, dark colors absorb light and light colors reflect it. But if a color’s not dark enough to absorb all of the light that gets diffused by water and is not light enough to reflect all of it either, the sweat stain will inevitably show.
On the one hand, colors that are on the darker side of the spectrum yet are not dark enough fall prey to this issue.
On the other hand, this also happens to colors that are considered light, such as pastels and light grays. Since their luminance is lower than that of white, they will absorb slightly more light when wet than they would do when dry.
But the difference that wetness makes is much more pronounced in clothing of middle luminance. There, the contrast between dry and wet elements is the greatest – regardless of hue.
You read correctly – it doesn’t matter what hue a piece of clothing has. All that matters when it comes to sweat stains is luminance (perceived brightness).
Any color that has a luminance of 50% (black has 0%, white has 100%) will accentuate wet spots the most.
Since you really wish to have a concrete answer, here it is: We consider colors within the range of 30% to 70% luminance to be sweat stain enhancing.
Shirt colors like middle gray (50% luminance), baby blue (70%), or dark red (30%), are classics. Sadly, they’re all bad choices when it comes to hiding sweat marks.
How to Hide Sweat Stains Using Color
So now you know the ins and outs of how wet spots influence a clothing item’s color. Let’s just sum up what we’ve learned in a few paragraphs, shall we?
If you're like us, the last thing you want to do after exerting yourself in hot weather is show up at work with sweat patches under your arms or down your back.
You might think it's hopeless when trying to find clothes that can keep sweat from showing, but in this article, we just showed you that it most certainly isn’t hopeless and even told you what colors hide sweat the best.
Let’s even make it super simple. We’d rank the most common clothing colors from best to worst (when it comes to hiding sweat stains) in the following order:
Black (unless you’re attending an outdoor summer event)
Very dark blue (similar to black, yet slightly less effective)
White (unless you’re a heavy sweater and don’t like wearing undershirts)
Colors with more than 75% luminance (like pastel yellow and light pink)
Colors with less than 25% luminance (like forest green and dark brown)
Any other color
Remember, there are other ways of masking sweat marks than simply paying attention to which colors you wear.
Patterns and prints help disguise sweat stains because they break up the contours of the wet patches. This makes those wet marks much less conspicuous.
Obviously, this is not what this article is about, so we won’t dig into the topic any deeper. Nonetheless, it must be said.
Also, fabric type, the looseness of the garment, sweat reducing/controlling products, and even your diet can have a profound effect on how well others can see your sweat stains. But that goes without saying, actually. And it’s not what you read this article for.
In any case, we hope you learned something and that we were able to answer all your questions about how to hide sweat stains just by using color.
If so, we’d greatly appreciate a nice Google review. We’re a bit on the slim side when it comes to third-party reviews. Whether you decide to help us out or not, thanks for reading and for your support.
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