Product Review: DeSoto Arm Coolers

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Product Review: DeSoto Arm Coolers
By Hanhster (the Monster)

While it is cool to be a female cyclist there are occasions when it is not so cool to advertise it with those nasty jersey sleeve tans… like say when you’re trying to look like an actual girl in a sleeveless summer dress at a BBQ or at your brother’s USC graduation (that tan line is in the family photo album forever now).

After slathering Neutrogena sunblock spf 55 on my arms couldn’t keep my arms from still getting way darker than the rest of my body (nothing against Neutrogena as I also tried other brands of sunblock and that didn’t work either) my search for another solution to the jersey sleeve tan began…and enter the DeSoto Arm Coolers.

I’ve had 2 weeks now of being able to wear these arm coolers on both training rides and races in sunny Southern California and my conclusion: Three Snaps! And here’s why…

I concur w. other reviewers that initially slipping into these arm coolers on a hot day for a ride feels strange but after a few minutes of moving you quickly overcome this strangeness and it starts to feel very natural. Also like other reviewers, I concur that they don’t actually “cool” your arms but since they start feeling pretty natural they don’t heat them up either. After a few 3+ hr training rides and a couple criterium races I did notice that my jersey sleeve tan line is now not as pronounced as before and since this basically shows that these arm coolers are doing the trick to fend off the sun that’s all I needed to know. I also like that these arm coolers feel a bit like compression wear on your arms holding it together and don’t slip down your arms like some cheapo arm warmers out there giving you that saggy arm wear look (chicks in particular don’t like anything that increases the “sag” factor). By the way, one way to tell the difference between these Desoto arm coolers and traditional arm warmers is that the DeSoto arm coolers are actually a bit porous almost mesh-like but not quite.

If your goal is to lose that jersey sleeve tan line this product will work for you. Let us know what you think of them too. I would say email me but as usual men run this website and they didn’t bother to give me my own outsideallday.com email address.
Word.