Best Undershirts & Solutions For Back & Chest Sweat (2023)

Looking for ways to manage back and chest sweat? Want to find men’s sweat proof undershirts for back sweating? You’ve come to the right place.

In this article, I’ll cover these topics and more:

• Best Undershirts For Back & Chest Sweat: All-Over Protection
• How To Prevent Chest Sweat Marks
• Top 3 Ways To Manage Chest Sweat And Back Sweat
• Other Ways to Manage Back Sweat or Chest Sweat

Be sure to check out my Top 9 Sweat Management Solutions article. It contains information about sweat blocking undershirts, sweat proof underwear, various antiperspirant & sweat-reducing options, and much more.

Best Undershirts For Back & Chest Sweat: All-Over Protection

To start, here’s an email from a reader in search of a sweat-proof undershirt — or at least one that would prevent sweat-through more than his cotton undershirts.

Tug,

I am glad I found someone I can ask about undershirts.

I sweat very easily and live in Houston Texas which is humid.

My white T Shirts always get yellow brown underarm stains.

In addition, I like to dance and cannot dance more than a couple of songs before my 100% normal cotton V-neck undershirt fills up and sweat comes through the back and the front.

Coming through on the sleeves is not an issue.

I need the best deep V-neck for sweating underarms. Plus, coverage in the front and back to absorb the sweat and not come through the clothing while I’m dancing.

Stylish shirts with two buttons undone are my favorite combo.

I need long neck plus a wide tailored around neck not to show.

I have deep V necks but you can see them on my neck near the perimeter of the collar.

What do you recommend? Bamboo or bamboo mix or what?

I would need to buy at least 10. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Thank you

Mark

Here are some undershirts I found that provide all-over protection for back and chest sweat.

Sutran & NanoDri

Currently, Sutran and NanoDri are the only brands that offer a men’s deep v-neck undershirt with all-over sweat-blocking protection. They are both a little thick, so they may make you slightly warmer, and feel more saturated when wet. But, they will certainly block more sweat than typical cotton undershirts.

Neat Apparel

Neat Apparel has all-over sweat-hiding undershirts. However, they don’t yet offer a deep v-neck men’s undershirt yet. Though, they do have a women’s deep v-neck undershirt.

Where to buy: neatapparel.com

How Neat Sweat Hiding Technology Works

Ejis

Ejis makes undershirts for back and underarm sweat. The undershirt provides over 600 square inches of coverage.

To keep your chest dry, you could try using an antiperspirant wipe. See this section below for more information.

Where to buy: ejisinc.com

Kleinert’s

Kleinert’s offers an undershirt with semi-all-over protection, but I’ve heard mixed reviews about how well the fabric repels sweat in the body areas that do not have the extra padding.

Their undershirts with pads in the underarm work pretty well in protecting sweat through in the underarm area from what I hear though.

Thompson Tee

Thompson Tee undershirts are designed for underarm sweat and prevent yellow or brown pit stains. So while they aren’t made for back or chest sweating, you can try combining this shirt with an antiperspirant wipe for other areas of your body. Thompson Tee does offer a men’s deep V neck undershirt option.

Other Sweat-Blocking Undershirts

For a complete list of undershirts that prevent sweat marks & sweat through, visit my Sweat Management Solutions article.

Prevent Getting Yellow/Brown Underarm Stains

The best way to prevent getting those stains in your underarm area are:

A. Don’t use antiperspirant

This isprobably not practical since you sweat a lot and are likely using it to help minimize sweat.

B. Apply antiperspirant at night

Underarm stains are caused when the antiperspirant chemicals transfer to your shirt. This will occur more often if your antiperspirant is not fully dry before you put on your undershirt or shirt.

When you apply antiperspirant at night, it has the opportunity to dry completely overnight, while you sleep.

The instructions on many 7-day or hyperhidrosis antiperspirants suggest night application for this very reason. For list of these and other types of antiperspirants, visit mySweat Management Solutionsarticle.

C. Clean underarm stains

You can clean the underarm area of your shirts with homemade solutions or products like Deo-Go and Pit Stop. Learn how to adeodorant removing solutionat home.

Question: How To Prevent Chest Sweat Marks?

Here are two questions related to chest & boob sweating — both of which can be addressed the same way.

Question #1:

Hi Tug,

I’ve read a lot about a variety of recommended undershirts, but they all seem to target underarm sweating.

I have hyperhidrosis and am lucky enough to have the government (in Australia) subsidize Botox treatments for my underarms, which means my underarms don’t really produce any sweat.

Botox treatments have significantly impacted my quality of life in this regard.

But what Botox can’t address is the centre line of my chest down to my belly button that produces the most sweat, and similarly on my lower back.

For this reason, I’ve been wearing the Uniqlo AIRism singlets under my t-shirts, polo shirts and dress shirts.

Wearing a singlet means less layers to hold in heat, and means I can wear a t-shirt without significant bulk underneath.

But the singlets are very thin and when they absorb sweat, it immediately comes through to my shirt or t-shirt or polo.

I really want to buy into the Ejis shirts, but I can see the waterproof section is only under the arms.

Do you know of any undergarments that have a waterproof layer around the chest midsection instead of, or in addition to, under the arms?

Thanks!

Ryan

Question #2:

Hi Tug,

What do you think is the best undershirt for hot weather and to conceal male boob sweat.

Any thoughts on antiperspirant under breasts??

Thanks,

Mike

Top 3 Ways To Manage Chest Sweat And Back Sweat

Heya Ryan and Mike,

Good to hear from you two and thanks for your questions!

Here are some suggestions.

1. Sweat Blocking Undershirts

As far as I know, there is no undershirt that has an extra layer of fabric or sweat-through protection on only the chest or front panel of the undershirt.

You could try out the following brands, but I’m not sure if you’ll get the desired results:

Neat Apparel has sweat-hiding undershirts and t-shirts — you can check those out here.

Sutran and NanoDri have two-layers of fabric everywhere — I think these might be overkill.

Alternatively, I’d suggest trying the following 2 options.

2. Hyperhidrosis Antiperspirant

Try a 7-day antiperspirant wipe like Kleinerts, SweatBlock, or check into a product like Duradry.

Check out my sweat management solutions article for information about those hyperhidrosis antiperspirants, and some others.

3. Undershirt Alteration – Adding Extra Sweat Protection

The Uniqlo AIRism undershirts are pretty cheap. So, you may want to consider cutting a strip of fabric from one of the undershirts, and have it sewn down the front center of another Uniqlo AIRism undershirt on the inside.

By adding an extra layer of AIRism fabric to the center chest area of the AIRism undershirt you’re currently wearing, that will provide a double layer of protection.

If adding the single layer of fabric to your undershirt doesn’t provide enough chest sweat-through protection, you could try:

1. Cut a 4″ strip of AIRism fabric and fold it in half, or cut two 2″ strips, and double them up
2. Cut the fabric strips from a more moisture-absorbing fabric, that also dries fast. Examples: Viscose / rayon (i.e. bamboo from viscose), Modal, MicroModal, TENCEL, or even Nylon

If you can’t sew, or don’t know anyone that does, you should be able to find a seamstress/sewer in your area who can do the above alteration for little cost.

Hope the above information helps!

Let me know what you wind up trying and how it works for you, ok?

Other Ways to Manage Back Sweat or Chest Sweat

For those with more excessive back and chest sweating, here are some other ideas to consider.

Botox / Dysport

Botox and Dysport are treatments used in the underarm area to help reduce/eliminate sweat.

These same procedures may be able to help someone with compensatory sweating. Please consult your physician.

Vaser Lipo

This is a relatively newer treatment used to treat people with axillary hyperhidrosis.

It would be interesting to find out whether or not Vaser Lipo could help reduce compensatory sweating.

Fast-Drying High-Performance Undershirts

I have received some messages from readers that claim that using high performance base layers that dry incredibly fast is a suitable alternative to wearing undershirts that absorb.

Here’s one example:

A few years ago I decided to try Silverback’s X-Static Crew Neck shirts. I sweat a lot.

I’ll keep a long story short, they might “work” but the way in which they work is by double-layering in sweaty areas (as you know).

What this means, in the long run, is that the shirts get hot, heavy, clammy. They ultimately make one sweat more over a long day in a hot climate.

You may want to investigate this solution that I found working much better.

As an avid cyclist, I started to explore higher-end base layers. I found that some of the better ones were excellent replacements for undershirts.

The best of them allow you to sweat, but do two things.

The first is they wick the sweat away quickly (resulting in cooler, more quickly drying undershirts – especially the non-cotton formulations).

Secondly, the sweat spreads out so quickly that it takes a really serious athletic effort to get any kind of sweat spotting.

The best I’ve found so far are the DeFeet lines, especially the UnD Lite (though I’ve had similarly positive experiences wearing low-end triathlon tanks from Sugoi and Primal as base layers).

Also, at $40 they’re less than the $50 silverbacks at a dramatically improved performance.

I was looking for a place to leave disparaging (but long-term) Silverback reviews (I have 6 of them!) and Positive UnD Lite reviews.

Perhaps it’s something that you want to explore (the two dramatically different sweat management philosophies.)

Anyway, thanks for the great site and looking out for the lowly undershirt!

Moisture Wicking Undershirts

When I workout, I wear high performing compression-fit base layers.

After an hour on the elliptical, there is pretty much always sweat on my outer shirt — sometime a lot of it.

Mind you, this is just from me standing up and the outer t-shirt just draping over my compression base layer.

In a typical day, you move around a lot, lean back on chairs/seats, etc.

So if you sweat a lot (like I did when working out), I still find it a little unlikely that a high-performing base layer will be really effective in preventing sweat through.

Though I’d love to hear from other heavy sweaters to find out if they’ve ever found high performance base layer t-shirts more effective in preventing sweat through than say layering or wearing an undershirt that absorbs more.

For more information about moisture wicking undershirts, check out this article.

Fabric Blends That Prevent Sweat-Through And Absorb Better Than Cotton

There are several fabrics that absorb sweat better than cotton, and dry faster.

• Rayon/Viscose(from bamboo, or other wood sources)
• TENCEL
• Nylon

On a related note, Mark did email me back, and he clarified what he was looking for.

I do not sweat too much under the armpits.

What I am looking for is an undershirt to wear when I am dancing so the sweat does not soak through as fast as when I wear cotton undershirts.

What do you recommend for that?

I want a deeper v-neck with wider on shoulders and lower around neck not to show when I have two buttons undone?

Mark

Heya Mark,

Honestly, it’s hard to tell whether or not an undershirt with a different fabric will prevent sweat-through or hide sweat better than one with 100% cotton.

There are many factors involved, such as yarn content & construction, fabric weight, fabric blend, fit, etc.

For example, based on technical specs, MicroModal is said to be 4x more absorbent than cotton, so you could try that.

Rayon from bamboo (or any other rayon or viscose) has wicking and absorbing characteristics. Therefore, that could be an option to consider to help you stop sweating through your shirt.

TENCEL is said to have a better moisture transport mechanism compared to cotton, MicroModal, and rayon. So, a TENCEL undershirt could perform better for you as well.

Whether or not they prevent sweat-through, in your specific situation, can only be determined if you buy a few different types and try them.

I would stay away from undershirts with large amounts (70%+) of polyester because those are wicking fabrics, and you’ll likely sweat through more than with anything above.

Deep V-Neck Undershirt Recommendations

As for deep v-neck undershirts, most of the brands that have products with the above fabrics have a deep v-neck option, such as:

1. MicroModal– Tommy John, RibbedTee, UnderFit, Calvin Klein, Collected Threads, Sloane men, etc.
2. TENCEL– RibbedTee
3. Nylon– RibbedTee, Atmoswear
4. Viscose/Rayon from bamboo– Thompson Tee (has underarm pads for pit sweat)

My recommendation would be to pick one from each of the above lists, and see how they work out for you.

Good luck and keep me posted on what you buy and try (:

Note: I’ve consolidated information & comments from past articles (to preserve the history) and included in this new article. Please check the article for the latest information.