Cotton Bathing Suits: What to Expect Before You Buy
Almost every swimsuit sold today is nylon or polyester with elastane. Cotton bathing suits are the exception, and there are real reasons for that. There are also real reasons people keep looking for them.
This is an honest account of what cotton swimwear does well, what it does badly, and who should buy it. We make cotton swimwear, so treat the last section as what it is, but the rest of this is the same advice we give people in our shop who decide not to buy.
Why cotton almost disappeared from swimwear
Synthetic swimwear won for four reasons: it dries in minutes, it stretches and snaps back, it holds colour in chlorine and salt, and it is cheap to produce at scale.
Cotton does none of those things as well. The industry moved in the 1960s and never looked back.
What changed is that a lot of people are now uncomfortable wearing plastic against their skin for hours in the sun, and are willing to trade convenience for it.
What a cotton bathing suit does well
It breathes. This is the whole point. Nylon and polyester sit on your skin and trap heat and moisture. Cotton lets air through. In tropical heat, sitting in a wet synthetic bikini for three hours is genuinely unpleasant and most people have simply accepted it as normal.
It is kind to skin. If you get heat rash, irritation or itching from synthetic swimwear, cotton usually solves it. Trapped moisture against skin in heat is what causes most of that.
It does not smell. Synthetic fibre holds bacteria in a way natural fibre does not. Anyone who has left a nylon bikini in a bag overnight knows what happens.
It sheds no plastic. Every wash of a synthetic garment releases microfibres. Cotton does not.
It looks like clothing. A cotton bathing suit reads as a garment rather than as swimwear, so it works over shorts, at a beach club, at lunch. That is a large part of why people buy it.
What a cotton bathing suit does badly
This is the part most shops skip.
It dries slowly. Expect an hour or more in the sun, longer in humidity, against ten or fifteen minutes for nylon. If you are swimming laps and then going straight to work, cotton is the wrong choice.
It gets heavy when wet. Noticeably. A soaked cotton one piece has real weight to it.
It can go sheer. Light colours in thin cotton become see through when wet. Any decent cotton swimsuit is lined for this reason. If you are shopping and the listing does not mention lining, ask.
Less stretch. Cotton does not snap back like elastane. Good cotton swimwear is cut with that in mind, using ties and adjustable straps rather than compression. Sizing behaves differently and you should expect to try things on.
Not for competitive swimming. Drag, weight and fit all work against you. For lengths in a pool, wear synthetic. This is not close.
Chlorine. Heavy chlorine will fade cotton faster than it fades synthetic. Rinse in fresh water after a pool.
Is 100 percent cotton swimwear a real thing?
Mostly no, and be suspicious of anything claiming it.
A swimsuit with zero stretch will not stay on. Most cotton bathing suits are a high cotton blend with a small percentage of elastane, or they are pure cotton cut with ties so they can be adjusted rather than stretched.
Both are legitimate. What matters is that the brand tells you which, and gives you the actual fibre percentages. If a listing says “100% cotton” with no further detail and the garment is clearly stretchy, something is missing from the description.
Organic or not
“Organic cotton” means certified, usually GOTS or OCS. It is a real standard with paperwork behind it.
A lot of swimwear described as organic cotton is not certified. If it matters to you, look for a certificate number rather than the word.
Our own cotton is natural cotton and it is not certified organic. We would rather say that plainly than use a word we cannot back up.
How to care for it
- Rinse in fresh water as soon as you are out of the sea or pool
- Wash cold, gentle cycle, or by hand
- Dry flat in shade, not in direct sun and not in a machine
- Do not wring it. Press the water out
- Store it dry, never rolled up damp in a bag
Treated this way a cotton bathing suit lasts years. Treated like a nylon one it will not.
Who should buy cotton swimwear
Yes, if you spend long days at the beach or by a pool, you react badly to synthetic fabric, you want swimwear that works as clothing, or you are trying to get plastic off your skin.
No, if you swim laps, you need to be dry within twenty minutes, or you want something you can treat carelessly.
What we make
Our cotton bathing suits and bikinis are cut and sewn by hand in small runs in Bali, lined, and designed around ties rather than compression. We also make one piece in bamboo lyocell, which behaves differently again and is worth knowing about if you want something cooler still.
We wrote separately about why we took this route at all in why we use the fabric most brands avoid, and about how cotton compares to bamboo in heat in bamboo vs cotton for activewear.
If you are in Bali, come and feel it before you decide. We are in Pererenan, next to Canggu.