Rash Guard or .... ??? Totally confused...

[Capt.JimDavis]

I've been told that a full body rash guard may help a little with the warmth and also making it easy to don the 7 mm wetsuit I am going to wear during my OW certification course.
So I start shopping around and came across a large terminology jungle and totally confused.

Some websites call it dive skin or thinskin, some others call it rash guard some others call them undergarment some others with different names.
Most of them is between 0.5 mm and 1 mm.
Also they come in Lycra, Polyolefin, Microprene and Trilastic kind of materials.
Some of them are mentioned with their 8 oz or 10 oz or 17 oz kind of weight (whatever that means) and some others in equivalency in mm. (like equal warmth of 2 mm wetsuit without the buoyancy) kind of explanations.

Now i've been told that I can get full body rash guard for about $40 to $50. But during my search I came across these stuff I mentioned above and some of their price is well over $100.
Are those stuff also equivalent of a rash guard or do they serve a totally different purpose?
So, I guess the question is "how can I get a something to wear under my wetsuit which will make it easy for me to don the wetsuit and keep my arms and legs a little warmer without causing me to lose an arm and a leg during the checkout? "

 

[H2Andy]

all the various names basically mean a dive skin

the weight in oz indicates increase in warmth protection (like mm's in wetsuits) ... though with a grain of salt ... these skins don't really offer a heck of a lot of warmth

the various materials i am not sure of. lycra seems to be the most common.

here's an 8 oz lycra suit that may be what you want:

Pinnacle 8oz Dive Skin LY12UBK with reviews at scuba.com

 

[W3tWilly]

You mention the term undergarments. As far as I am aware that is normally in reference to drysuit undergarments. Which are used to thermally insulate the diver from the water temperature in waters cold enough for drysuits.

Drysuit undergarments would not be anything similar to a rash guard. Drysuit undergarments are normally thicker and can get very expensive hundreds of dollars. Drysuit undergarments would not help you don and doff a wetsuit.

 

[H2Andy]

yeah the problem is that some ads call the lycra skins "undergarments"

event though, as you say, they're not in the drysuit meaning of the word

 

[Damselfish]

to help get on a wetsuit something slippery like lycra would work best, but it won't add any warmth. Microprene or any of the thin .5-1mm neoprene suits I've seen have the same kind of fabric surface as most wetsuits which isn't really slippery.

When they describe a fabric by weight it means how much it weighs per square yard or meter or something like that. So it's indirectly a measure of thickness but they're all thin so it's not saying anything about warmth, more an indication how durable the fabric will likely be.

 

[fnfalman]

Rashguard will not help with warmth, but it does help with sliding in and out of wetsuit. Or better yet, a long sleeve compression T-shirt from Under Armour. The microfiber UA shirt dries a lot quicker than the lycra rashguards.

I wear rashguard to help with sliding in and out of the wetsuit but primarily to keep from getting sunburned between dives when I pull my wetsuit off the upper body and just let it hang around the waist.

 

[Capt.JimDavis]

Darn it!!!

My MacBook's Safari can't connect the Scuba.com server for checkout process for some reason. I tried ten times. Tomorrow I will call them and order on the phone. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[on_two_wheels]

Jim (or should I say Sir?), just get a long sleeve Under Armor shirt. Get the one that has lycra, not the loose one. It's pretty much the same thing but might be a little less money and easily available at most sports shops. Personally, I don't use one. Once I learned how to don/doff it correctly, it was pretty easy.

Once you get it on, you probably won't take it off until you're done diving so I wouldn't recommend spending money to cover the legs. I just pull mine down to the waist between dives. Yeah, takes a bit to get the thing on but that's money I can use toward higher quality gear rather than something that just makes it easier to get into the suit.

What part of california are you in?

 

[diver 85]

To the OP, try this, for the money I bet you'll not be disappointed......$25.....

Sea Elite Sport Lycra Skin at Divers-Supply.com

 

[on_two_wheels]

At that price, forget under armor!!!! I might even get one when it's that cheap! Great find by diver 85!!