Our family is a sun hoody family. Any one who hikes or climbs with me knows I won’t stop singing the praises of the sun hoody. Earlier this Spring as the bug season arrived I went through my gear closet to take stock of how many sun hoody’s we currently have in rotation (3 for me, 2 for my wife, none for the kids!?).
Getting my kids to enjoy outdoor time is especially important to me given how much screen time they are getting due to school being almost 100% online during the current pandemic, so I didn’t hesitate to order them both new sun hoody’s from REI. We went with the REI-Co-op Sahara Sun Hoodie for kids.
Quality
These are as nice as the adult versions I have tested from various quality manufacturers. With a 50+ UPF rating we don’t go through as much sun block as we usually would. The material is soft to the touch, comfortable on bare skin, and super breath-able. Alex (age 8) likes the thumb holes which keep the sleeves down and provide some extra coverage to the back of his hands. Madalena (age 4) loves the color purple.
Sizing
REI makes a full size range from XXS (4-5 years) to XL (18 years). We got the XXS for our almost 5 year old daughter who is on the small side. It fit her great and we are expecting to get a second summer out of it. For our almost 9 year old son who is on the slightly tall side we got him the M (10-12 years) size and it definitely was not too big for him… we expect to get a second summer or two out of his!
Effectiveness
With 50 SPF on such thin breathable fabric wearing these keeps the kids cooler than just wearing a t-shirt. While thin we haven’t noticed an mosquito getting through the fabric, though we do take the extra precaution of treating them with Sawyer Permethrin Clothing and Gear Repellent. This is another product we use every Spring. I treat one pair of hiking pants for each of us, and all of our sun hoodies, and one pair of hiking shoes each. There is simply not a more effective way of really repelling mosquitos, black flies, and ticks than using this clothing treatment. You can literally walk through a tick infested field of tall grass with pure immunity.
Summary
Sun hoodies are still a relatively new addition in the outdoor clothing market and a know a lot of people haven’t caught on yet. Once you start wearing one on a hot humid summer day though you’ll see the light (or the shade) that keeps you cooler and lets you play outside with less greasy sunblock and less toxic on skin bug repellents. For a couple years we couldn’t find kid sized sun hoodies so it’s great to see a company like REI making these for our little ones!
Find the Saraha Sun Hoodie for kids HERE
Shop all sun hoodies on REI here
See you in the mountains,
Northeast Alpine Start
These items were purchased with our own money. Affiliate links help support this blog. Thank you.
Northeast Alpine Start 