The North Face discontinued the Better Than Naked shirt.
REASONS TO BUY
Extremely breathable mesh
Dries very quickly
Comfortable
REASONS TO AVOID
Super light mesh has durability concerns
Not many features
The North Face Better Than Naked Review
The best running shirt at forcing evaporative heat loss
Credit: The North Face
RELATED: Best Running Shirts
Our Verdict
Our Analysis and Test Results
The North Face Better Than Naked shirt is exceptionally light, weighing in at a mere 3.0 ounces for our size large. This is the lightest shirt we tested, which was no surprise to us considering it seems to be made almost entirely of mesh. The back is made up of hyper-thin perforated mesh in a sort of shattered glass-looking pattern, while the front, sides, and sleeves, are also polyester so thin as to be almost see-through. The gist of it is: this is a fantastic shirt for running, especially in hot weather, but the thinness of its fabric means it wouldn't be our first choice for use as a base layer.
Performance Comparison
The Better Than Naked shirt was our Top Pick for Hot Weather because its super thin fabric and mesh paneling do a great job breathing and aiding in evaporative cooling. Here running in the Zion high country.
Comfort
The Better Than Naked shirt is easily among the top scorers when it came to comfort.
We find that for running shirts comfort is usually dependent on smooth seam sewing, soft and slippery fabric, and an athletic, but not too tight, fit. This shirt nails it in all three departments.
While the back is made of super perforated mesh, the front of the Better Than Naked is also very thin, almost transparent polyester fabric.
The fabric used is 100% polyester, giving it a smooth, slippery texture that feels great against the skin. The North Face claims on their website that this shirt uses “stitch-free” construction, but this is only true for the seams that cross the back of the shoulders, which happen to be the most noticeable seams on a running shirt. These seams are taped using adhesive. The rest of the seams on the shirt are sewn together using flatlock seams, which are low profile and don't rub or chafe noticeably. The fit is very similar to that found on the New Balance Ice 2.0, that is, athletic and slim but not hugging the body. It is in no way loose and flowy like the Under Armour UA Tech or the Patagonia Airchaser.
You can see in this photo the seam taped seam with no stitching found on the back of the shoulders of the Better Than Naked. This spot in particular is a problem area for rubbing seams, so we loved that these are completely flat and smooth.
We think the fit is pretty much ideal for running, with no constrictions at all and gave it 9 out of 10 points for comfort.
In this photo you can see the fit of the Better Than Naked. While it is fairly trim, it doesn't hug the body too closely, and is quite stretchy as well.
Breathability
When it comes to allowing direct airflow to quickly aid in the evaporation of sweat and its transport away from the body, no shirt could hold a candle to the Better Than Naked.
The mesh panel on the back of this shirt is far and away the lightest, thinnest, and most breathable piece of fabric found on any shirt in this review. Of course, the front and sleeves of the shirt were slightly heavier, but still super light and on par with the mesh found on the back of the New Balance Ice 2.0. This shirt is made using FlashDry fabrics, which The North Face says is engineered to accelerate the removal of sweat from the skin. They don't exactly tell us how this works, but we know that it works great. We gave this shirt a perfect 10 for breathability, outscoring the Ice 2.0.
We thought this was the most breathable shirt in our testing largely because the mesh panel on the back was so thin that air could very easily pass through.
Drying Speed
The Better Than Naked ties with the Patagonia Airchaser as the fastest drying shirts in our side-by-side drying test.
Since polyester fabrics such as the one used on this shirt cannot absorb water, any wetness is simply water droplets trapped and held between the fibers. Evident from our drying speed test was that the lightest shirts had the fewest fibers, and trapped the least amount of water, allowing them to also dry out the fastest. Heavier shirts, such as the Russell Athletic Dri-Power Mesh Performance or Under Armour UA Tech, dried out considerably slower.
Versatility
If there is one knock against this shirt, it would be that it isn't super versatile for uses other than running. In fact, we scored it as the single least versatile shirt of this review, lower than the similarly mesh Salomon Agile SS Tee.
The main reason for this low score was the super thin fabric and a preponderance of mesh. While we admit that we didn't test this shirt long enough to trash it completely, we have worn so many technical synthetic shirts till they were in rags that we feel we understand what is likely to withstand abuse and what isn't. Rubbed daily under pack straps while backpacking, climbing, or even just day hiking, this shirt wouldn't survive for long. Reserve this shirt strictly for running, and check out the Arc'teryx Motus Crew, our Top Pick for use as a base layer, if that is what you want out of your tech shirt.
Features
The features found on this shirt work fine, but there aren't very many of them. On the back of the neck can be found a nice, well-sewn sweatband, and this shirt has three reflective patches — one logo on the front and two little strips on the sides of the back.
However, it does not have any odor control or additional UPF, like the Smartwool PhD Ultra Light, which has natural odor control and a UPF 30+ rating. It also doesn't have the plethora of reflectors found on the Arc'teryx Motus Crew for safer nighttime running. We awarded 6 points for features.
On the top of this photo is one of the taped seams, then there is the super thin and lightweight mesh, with a flat locked seam on the bottom. The Better Than Naked had few features other than its incredibly thin and airy fabric.
Best Applications
As our Top Pick for Hot Weather, we naturally think that this is where this shirt will shine. It will also work just fine for any other sort of running, long or short, although it wouldn't be our top choice if we always ran with a running vest on. Due to its delicate mesh, we wouldn't choose to purchase it for activities where we wear a pack.
Out for a run on the Hop Valley trail in Zion National Park. We love wearing this shirt for shorter runs where a vest is not necessary.
Value
This shirt retails for $50. While this seems pretty expensive for a t-shirt, the fact is that it is the second most affordable of all of our top scorers. We think that this shirt presents pretty good value as an everyday running shirt, and simply caution against activities that will quickly trash it.
What we thought was a trail may have only been a cow trail, but lets see where it goes anyway! Running in the Better Than Naked with Zion in the distance.
Conclusion
The North Face Better Than Naked is the lightest and most breathable shirt that we tested. Since it works to aid evaporation so well, we chose to recognize it as our Top Pick for Hot Weather running. It is a specialty shirt that will thrive on the trail or roads but probably won't stand the abuse of backpacking or hiking with a pack on. As one of the highest rated shirts, as well as the most comfortable, we wholeheartedly recommend this shirt to any dedicated runner.
—
Andy Wellman
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