Up until recently, I did my swim training in the same pair of speedo jammers I bought 6 years ago for $20 at a little sports store. I always machine washed and air dryed it. Sure, the black color had some fading, but the material wasn’t worn thin or anything detrimental - heck, the speedo logo was still silkscreened on there. Unfortunately, I forgot it at the gym and it vanished overnight. Oh well, it lasted long enough, time to enjoy the benefits of 6 years of swimsuit technologies right? I picked up a new pair of $30 speedo jammers, boasting Xtra life chlorine resistant whatever on the tag. After 1 month, I can tell that this suit won’t last beyond this season. It’s already worn hella thin and some of the stiches are loose. WTF?! Did speedo figure out they can scrounge more cash out of us by making their suits so crappy? Do I now need to spend 2x, 3x the money to get a suit that lasts more than a year?
Speedo Endurance or similar polyester suit is your best bet. Expensive, but lasts MUCH longer than lycra.
from my experience, speedo endurance suits last ~2 years and I swim at least 4x per week.
Was your suit polyester?
These hold up well: http://www.speedousa.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3106227&cp=3124322.3124332.3124359.3608464&cid=1062162
But, I have never washed a bathing suit unless you count wearing while taking a shower to be washing the suit.
Polyester. TYR Durafast or Speedo Endurance.
yeah, what they all said…speedo endurance. i got some nike suits on closeout at the same time i got my speedo endurance and the nike suits didn’t last a season while my speedo endurance is still going strong after 3 seasons.
Why are you washing the suits? Rinse in the shower and air/spin dry. Like the other posters have said, the Speedo Endurance suits work really well, and the water polo version lasted even longer for me. Great material, the stitching came apart on me long before the material faded or ripped, probably lasted 2-3 years, and that was when I was swimming over 40k yards a week in a heavily chlorinated pool.
Speedo Endurance or similar polyester suit is your best bet. Expensive, but lasts MUCH longer than lycra.
+1
Polyester suits are fine, but if you swim as much as I do they still wear down. On swimoutlet they have swim briefs for like 10 bucks, so I just bought 10 pair and they are decent.
My Kiwami speedos have lasted well more than a year of full time usage (which in my case is generally a lot). I’d say the suits are easily good for 1,000,000yds (or meters). But really any polyester suit will do that… The Kiwami ones just look good, which a lot of poly suits don’t, because they are designed as training suits.
Just checked out Kiwami, and I am am liking the Mako suit.
I like the dolphin poly jammers.
http://www.swimoutlet.com/product_p/3345.htm
$22.95
Some stretch after a couple of years as my 28s feel looser than my new 30s.