Reviews

Rab Aeon Tee | Review

High-wicking, fast-drying baselayer tee with excellent Polygiene anti-odour treatment, makes a faithful running and travel companion.

Outdoors Magic: High wicking, fast drying, no-nonsense design with impressive anti-odour qualities thanks to Polygiene allows multi-day wear.

Outdoors Tragic: No collar for sun protection or venting zip provision.

Outdoors Grabbit? The Aeon is available in short and long-sleeved versions and it’s a cracking, simple. running and all-round baselayer that wicks and dries fast. the Polygiene anti-pong treatment works exceptionally well too.

Full Specification

Wicking base-layer tee / long or short-sleeved versions £30/£35 / hi-gauge polyester fabric / 30+ UPF sun protection / Polygiene permanent anti-odour treatment / flat-lock seams / reflective details / regular fit.

Full review below

Simple tee-shirt design works just fine either as an outer layer in warm conditions or under a shell - lwimages.co.uk

Rab Aeon – In Depth

Rab’s light and silky base-layer tee ticks all the standard baselayer boxes and then some. It uses a fast-wicking, fast-drying, slightly stretchy, polyester fabric, has flat-locked seams for comfort and features unobtrusive reflective details for night-time safety.

A protection factor of 30+ UPF should stop you burning in the sun too. Finally, the fabrics uses a permanent Polygiene anti-microbial treatment to reduce odours for the lifetime of the garment. More about that in a minute.

Rab Aeon – Performance

We’ve had two Aeon tees on the go for around six months now used mostly for faster, hotter stuff like trail running and they’ve been great. We cant fault the wicking and drying properties of the fabric and it’s comfortable against the skin too.

The lack of a collar does leave the back of your neck feeling exposed in really fierce sunshine and there’s no venting zip, but both also save weight and mean a lower, neater profile worn under a shell.

The Aeon’s trump card is the silver-based, Polygiene permanent anti-odour treatment. Earlier this year we wore the tee for seven consecutive days for a mix of running, walking, mountain biking and general life horror.

Remarkably, although the tee didn’t smell box-fresh, the microbe-killing Polygiene meant it remained wearable throughout and never triggered divorce proceedings once. Impressive stuff.

Verdict

An excellent, no-nonsense, high-wicking baselayer tee, that’s great worn along in hot conditions or can be happily layered under a shell when necessary. The long-sleeved version should be ideal for fast-movers in cooler conditions too.

What amazed us most though, was the potential to wear the top on multiple outings without washing in between. It used to be that synthetics were wear and wash only unless you wanted to make like a skunk, but our experience with Polygiene is that that’s no longer the case, which makes a tee like this a real alternative to merino wool for active use and as a travel stand-by too.

It looks good too, check the colour-toned side panels in the main picture for evidence.