By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Karen D'Ascoli shows Emily Yeh, left, a shirt from
XCEL's new line of sun-protective clothing.
New clothes aim
to save your skin
An isle wetsuit maker
By Greg Ambrose
turns his attention to protecting
people from the sun
Star-BulletinED D'Ascoli hasn't been content to sit back in his Haleiwa factory and retail shop making money by selling tropical wetsuits to Hawaii's ocean lovers. The owner of XCEL Wetsuits is constantly expanding his business, designing and exporting wetsuits for surfing and diving in cold water, creating an international network of licensees to sell his XCEL line, opening a new retail store in Honolulu and adding exporter and manufacturer of the year honors to his credits.
Now D'Ascoli is reaching out to shield ocean lovers of all ages from damaging ultraviolet rays with a new line of sun-protective clothing.
"Sun protection is a full-time battle in Hawaii," says D'Ascoli. "When you have your baby on the beach, you have to look at what is going to happen in 20 or 40 years. This type of melanoma needs to be taken care of when kids are toddlers.
"I'm looking at people surfing when they are 75. It's a shame to have a doctor tell them they can't go in sun anymore because they didn't cover up when they were younger."
D'Ascoli's task has been to find a fabric and clothing design that allows active people to paddle, surf, swim, dive and sail freely while providing complete protection from the sun.
It's a tricky process that must thwart the persistence of UVA and more-damaging UVB rays from reaching the skin.
Heavier fabric blocks the sun's rays best, but restricts movement. A tighter weave in lighter material achieves the same protection, while allowing free motion.
Knitted fabrics stretch, which makes movement easier but allows solar rays to penetrate, while woven fabrics stretch less and protect more. Cotton, wool and silk have natural properties that absorb UV rays. But they absorb water, which lessens their protective qualities, while synthetic materials repel water, increasing protection.
Some darker dyes absorb UV rays and provide greater protection than light-colored fabrics, while UV radiation absorbers such as Rayosan can be applied to fabrics to increase their Ultraviolet Protection Factor.
Through trial and error, D'Ascoli has created a fabric and clothing design that when tested by a private manufacturer was shown to offer nearly the same protection with and without Rayosan treatment.
They also tested XCEL's fabric and clothing in actual conditions, and found that after six months of use there was little deterioration of protection.
The market for sun-protective clothing is expanding worldwide, with many companies making extravagant claims about the effectiveness of their garments.
D'Ascoli is eager to emboss his clothing with a sanctioned rating of their high UPF level, but no uniform standard exists in the United States to avoid false claims and prevent confusion.
"There are no official testing labs," D'Ascoli says. "The public doesn't know that they are buying things called UV protection and rated, and it's not true. I'm looking at providing something that the consumer can have confidence in. You are looking at something you are putting your children into."
The machinery for testing a fabric's sun protectiveness is used by textile companies for in-house testing, but until national standards are adopted, no labs are interested in conducting tests.
The Food and Drug Administration treats sun-protective clothing as a medical device, but it has established no standards for rating the effectiveness of products.
Understandably, Australia is deadly serious about sun protection, since Australians have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. The FDA is looking at the standards the University of New South Wales has established for rating the Ultraviolet Protection Factor of clothing.
To ensure that their standards are realistic, the Australians are fitting mice with tiny jackets and irradiating them to test the effectiveness of the sun-protection material as the mice scamper about.
Once the FDA establishes UV protection standards, D'Ascoli sees Hawaii as the perfect place for a state or private laboratory to test textiles from around the world.
Barbara Stanton of the High Tech Development Corp., part of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, shares D'Ascoli's enthusiasm for a fabric-testing lab.
"Hawaii is ideal as a research center and test site," Stanton says. "That kind of scientific activity could be done anywhere in the state, and we are known as a solar state and an ocean state.
"In terms of interest in global warming and ozone layer depletion, protective clothing would be of great interest. Testing, development and research - those are a natural for Hawaii."
Until national standards are created and approved by the FDA, D'Ascoli is trying to convince people that the sun is their enemy.
"I see young people spend $50 on shorts or a T-shirt that does nothing for them, other than it's a cool thing to have. But they don't spend that kind of money to protect themselves when they are out in the ocean or on the beach.
"I want to show them that it's a cool thing to do."
