REASONS TO BUY
Featherweight
Exceptionally breathable
Chest button snaps
REASONS TO AVOID
Extra large hood can fly off in the wind
Not the most durable fabric
May be too trim fit for some
Ketl Nofry Hoodie Review
An excellent and highly breathable sun shirt for moving fast on hot, sunny summer days
You may find that the hood on the KETL Nofry Hoodie may completely engulfs you!
Credit: Justin Simoni
RELATED: Best Sun Protection Shirts of 2024
Our Verdict
Always on the go? The Ketl Nofry Hoodie was made just for you. Featuring lightweight fabric with an almost perfect balance of sun protection and breathability designed for moving quickly, this hooded sun shirt won't leave you overheated and sopping wet in your own sweat but instead refreshed and ready to keep on going until the sun finally sets. UPF 30+ sun protection rating is likely enough for most circumstances, though not enough for the sunniest of days. The hood also does fly off a little more easily than other hooded sun shirts, and the trim athletic fit could be an issue for some body types. Even with this small list of shortcomings, the Nofry is now one of our favorite sun shirts for hiking, trail running, backpacking, and high exertion on hot days.
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 This Product
Ketl Nofry Hoodie | |||||
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| Awards |  Best for High Output Activity |  Best Overall Hooded Sun Shirt | Best Overall Button-Up Sun Shirt |  Best Bang for Your Buck | |
| Price | $65 List | $50 List $49.95 at REI | $53.94 at Amazon Compare at 3 sellers | $59.99 at Backcountry | $29 List $24.99 at Amazon |
Overall Score  |
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| Star Rating | |||||
| Bottom Line | When plans call for backpacking for a week in the middle of summer, this is the sun shirt we grab | With a great balance of sun protection, features, and breathability, this is an excellent and versatile sun hoodie | A comfortable, good looking, feature-packed, and versatile button-up | A lightened-up and revamped take on a classic button-up favorite fishing shirt | A great value that packs the essentials to keep you covered from the sun's rays |
| Rating Categories | Ketl Nofry Hoodie | REI Co-op Sahara Sh... | Mountain Hardwear C... | Columbia Silver Rid... | Baleaf UPF 50 Hoody |
| Comfort and Fit (30%) | |||||
| Sun Protection (25%) | |||||
| Breathability (20%) | |||||
| Versatility (15%) | |||||
| Durability (10%) | |||||
| Specs | Ketl Nofry Hoodie | REI Co-op Sahara Sh... | Mountain Hardwear C... | Columbia Silver Rid... | Baleaf UPF 50 Hoody |
| Sun Protection Level (UPF) | 30+ | 50+ | 50 | 50 | 50+ |
| Coverage | Long sleeve, hood | Long sleeve, hood | Long sleeve, collar | Long sleeve, collar | Long sleeve, hood |
| Features | Large hood for added protection, thumb loops, front button snaps | Thumb loops, hood drawstring | Roll-up sleeves, zip pockets | Roll-up sleeves, anit-microbial treated fabric, back vent | Large hood for added protection, thumb holes |
| Fit | Regular | Relaxed | Regular | Relaxed | Relaxed |
| Material | 100% polyester | 92% polyester, 8% spandex | Polyester Dobby | Omni-Wick ripstop 100% polyester | 100% polyester |
| Odor Control | No | No | No | Antimicrobial treatment | No |
| Available SIzes | S - XXXL | S - XXXL | S - XXL | XS - XXL | S - XXXL |
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Our Analysis and Test Results
The Ketl Nofry Hoodie stands out of the pack with its excellent lightweight and breathable fabric, which we tested as being both very breathable while still having a UPF rating of 30+, which is just enough for us to wear all day in the hot summer Colorado sun. The front snaps on the top of the shirt are an excellent alternative to the more conventional zippers found on other shirts. Take note that you'll be getting a slimmer, more athletic fit with the Nofry, so size appropriately.
Performance Comparison
The Ketl Nofry Hoodie is hard to leave at home without on hot, sunny - and sweaty - outdoor adventures.
Credit: Justin Simoni
Comfort and Fit
Being a slim-fit, raglan-sleeved hooded sun shirt, the Ketl Nofry Hoodie feels to us more like an athletic top than many of the other looser-fitting hooded sun shirts — and nothing like the button-up sun shirts we've tested. The Nofry gets away with having a tighter fit as the fabric is just that breathable. If you prefer a more billowy cut, consider sizing up.
The fabric of the Ketl Nofry is rather sheer and very lightweight, making it perfect for a summer base layer. Good or bad, it won't hold on to much heat all by itself but will work well to wick sweat away from the body and allow it to escape quite easily.
The voluminous hood on the Ketl Nofry Hoodie will swallow up any manner of helmet - be it cycling, climbing, paddling, or snow sports.
Credit: Justin Simoni
Sun Protection
The Nofry Hoodie is reported by the manufacturer as having a UPF rating of 30+, meaning that 1/30 — or less than 4% — of the sun's radiation makes it through the fabric to hit your skin. Blocking 96% of UV is a fairly good rating and about halfway between the least protective shirts in our lineup and the most protective shirts. The Nofry gave enough sun protection to let our main, fair-skinned tester explore the Colorado mountains in the sunny summer months for days on end.
Our at-home test — which you can try yourself using an inexpensive UV card — returned results that gave us confidence in the claimed 30 UPF rating. We also used a lux meter to see how much visible light is blocked by the fabric when the fabric is put between a light source and the instrument, and the results also corroborated with the UV card.
Our simple UV card test resulted in better UV protection than we anticipated. Just a fraction of UV rays penetrated the fabric, which aligns with the UPF 30+ rating claimed by the manufacturer.
Credit: Justin Simoni
The Nofry Hoodie features a very large hood that can drape over your face and across a bill of a hat, providing copious shade to your whole head. Simple thumb loops help keep the sleeves tight against your hands and help protect the backs of your hands. This top is cut a little tighter than many other sun shirts that we have tested. We measured the torso length to be 26" on a size large. If you want a looser fit or feel that you're between sizes, we recommend sizing up.
The oversized hood wraps around and anchors at the base of your throat, adding lots of shade to your whole face. Simple thumb loops help cover your wrists and keep the sleeves from riding up while you recreate.
Breathability
The absolute standout attribute of the Ketl Nofry Hoodie is the fabric's breathability. Our on-the-trail and along-the-creek, as well as in-the-lab tests, verify that the fabric used rivals some of the most breathable sun shirts we've ever tested. A shirt that both breathes and protects well means you'll love wearing it when you're huffing and puffing up a mountain pass backpacking, trail running a PR in the mid-summer sun, or bushwhacking to your secret fishing spot. And because it's comfortable to wear, you're more likely to wear it.
Our lab air permeability test reveals that the Nofry Hoodie's fabric blocked approximately 42% of the air we tried to blow through it — some of the best results in our whole lineup. Our line dry test also shows that this sun hoodie dries very fast — on a hot, dry summer day, this shirt dries in about 40 minutes or less. This metric closely corresponds to how fast sweat evaporates from the shirt as well. The half-length button up front will also allow you to adjust ventilation quickly if you do find yourself overheating.
The snap buttons on the chest of the Ketl Nofry Hoodie was one of our favorite features, allowing us to very quickly vent out warm air that may be trapped beneath the fabric.
Credit: Maddock Rigby
Under our microscope, tightly woven fabric is interspersed with stripes of looser woven fabric, which helps give the Nofry Hoodie that extra breathability advantage over fabric that doesn't feature a similar strategy. The fabric itself is also very light — we weighed a size large on our scale at only 5 ounces (143 grams) — one of the lightest in our lineup.
Seen under the microscope, the Ketl Nofry Hoodie has repeating stripes of tightly knit fabric evenly interspersed with looser knit. This allows both air and water to more easily escape out.
Credit: Justin Simoni
Versatility
The Ketl Nofry Hoodie excels on hot, sunny days where you're liable to sweat a lot and want a ton of breathability. We absolutely adored it when backpacking the Colorado Trail, trail running our local routes, commuting on our bike in the hot, mid-summer sun, bouldering at the local area, and taking our over-active yellow lab to the park for an infinite game of fetch. Outside of sweet spots like these, you may not appreciate this top as much as we do when we're recreating and working up a sweat like this.
Because of its great air permeability, Nofry Hoodie isn't going to work well as a wind-protective layer. The hood is also so large that it does easily fly off in the wind. It doesn't have any pockets, so it may not make the best travel top.
Staying both protected from the sun as well as comfortably cool while on the go - like on this backpacking trip into the Seven Sisters Basin in Colorado - proved the perfect task for the Ketl Nofry Hoodie.
Credit: Justin Simoni
The fabric and cut are pretty slim and performance-oriented, so it doesn't make the best casual any-day shirt for lounging around the house. The UPF rating of 30+ isn't going to protect you as well as some of the UPF 50+ shirts also found in our lineup, so if you're very prone to burning in direct sunlight, you may want to choose a more protective shirt.
There aren't too many sunshirts that we can confidently say we absolutely enjoy running in, but the Ketl Nofry Hoodie is one of them. The extra-large hood does tend to blow off if the chest is unbuttoned, so we tucked it underneath the hat we were wearing for a good compromise of sun protection and extra breathability.
Credit: Justin Simoni
Durability
We were happy to find no defects in the construction of the Ketl Nofry Hoodie, nor did we see any major failures to the garment while testing the hoodie in the field. We took the NoFry on a scouting mission on the infamous Nolan's 14 route, which takes you off trail on some of the highest mountain terrain in Colorado with a backpack, no worse for wear.
Almost every seam is a flatlock seam, which is both very strong and unobtrusive. The four-way stretch of the fabric also helps with preventing the fabric from getting snagged on a tree branch you may walk too closely to. The array of snaps is going to be slightly more resilient to catastrophic failure when compared to a zipper. Although we saw minimal damage to the fabric itself, we do have to caution that fabric so thin, light, and breathable ultimately is going to be more delicate than a tighter knit, heavier fabric that doesn't breathe as well. This wouldn't be the sun shirt to use for extreme bushwhacking, trad climbing, etc.
Flatlock seams - super strong and unobtrusive - comprise nearly every seam of this shirt.
Credit: Maddock Rigby
Should You Buy the Ketl Nofry Hoodie?
We think the Ketl Nofry Hoodie is an almost perfect top for those who desire just enough sun protection matched with excellent breathability during the summer season while on the go. We love the enormous hood and the chest that vents easily with just a few button snaps. The Nofry kept us not just protected but cool, with excellent breathability and drying time.
We're all smiles after a long day enjoying the sun underneath the hood of the Nofry.
Credit: Justin Simoni
What Other Sun Shirts Should You Consider?
If you're seeking a breathable sun hoodie without such a slim fit, seriously look into grabbing the Outdoor Research Echo Hoodie. It features a much more relaxed cut while also featuring very similar light, breathable fabric. The Echo does lack any mechanical venting, like the button-up top of the Nofry. If you are looking for a lightweight subshirt that gives excellent sun as well as wind protection, take a look at the Outdoor Research Astroman Air Hoodie. If you need a little more extra sun protection but don't want to lose a way to open up the front, consider the highly technical Black Diamond Alpenglow Pro Hoody.
—
Justin Simoni
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