Summer Sweater Challenge: 5 Hot Adventures Wearing SeaCell

The sensory-friendly solution: SeaCell fabric in Oliver Charles Summer Sweaters.

Enclothed Cognition: Empowerment Through Clothing

Introducing the 1st blog in a 3-part series about I stayed cool and stylish in Florida's summer heat with Oliver Charles Summer Crew Neck.

Discover the wonders of the sweater’s SeaCell fabric, which has a lovely weight and UPF 50+ rating.

Join me as I embrace wearing 1 very different sweater on 5 local adventures as part of the Summer Sweater Challenge.

• Summer Sweater Challenge
• How Sweaters Empower
• My SeaCell Review

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Anyone in their right mind would certainly never agree to a challenge requiring them to wear a sweater in the summer for 5 adventurous days.

And if I told you there was a person who did, in fact, take on that challenge, and that same person agreed to do so whilst living in North Central Florida in the month of June, I’m pretty sure you would conclude that, clearly, this is a crazy person!

Or possibly one of those little old ladies that doesn’t even weigh a hundred pounds, and their lack of body fat creates a condition of constantly being cold (don’t lie, you know one of these people.)

You would just be dead wrong. I’m the person. And I’m not a tiny little old lady, granted the insanity bit is debatable. But, yeah, I did it. And I’m super glad I did.

Join me throughout this blog as I ward off the heat in my Summer Crew Neck.

Oliver Charles Sweaters Are The Definition Of Workleisure

Y’all, I know that there is a whole new category of fashion these days called workleisure or “Work-From-Home,”(aka WFH - so many acronyms!)

I believe this is possibly an evolution of the similarly-hyphenated “Ready-To-Wear” designation, but this hypothesis needs more research.

The classic look for those of us spending those long days in a bonus-room office is all about business on the top, pajama party on the bottom. I happen to feel more like a boss when I wear pants, and not the threadbare, moose-print flannels mom gave me for Christmas 7 years ago.

So today, I put on my bossest jorts (I mean it IS Florida, after all) and kicked my Sweaterama with my spankin’ new, Blue Grey Oliver Charles Summer Sweater. It was honestly not my first choice color, but I’m glad it’s the color I got.

It may seem weird to say that something can be the perfect gray - but I’m picky about gray the way cats are picky about what flavor Fancy Feast they’ll eat. My preference is that classic gym-shirt gray, you know the EXACT color I mean because everyone had that gym shirt, and you know it goes. with. everything.

Turns out, Oliver Charles knows their grays, and they nailed it on this one. Doesn’t hurt that it’s a really good color for my complexion. #bonuspoints I’ve been organizing an online event and interviewing some experts podcast-style, and I am happy to report that this sweater looks great on me and great on a Zoom video. I recorded two interviews, and they are two of my favorites. How we feel about how we look can play a huge role in how we show up for things in our life, and I felt comfortable and confident in this garment.

First day of Sweaterama: great success, much happy.

An Everyday Sweater Should Balance Warmth And Breathability

Sometimes, in the land of couples-who-work-from-home, it becomes necessary to leave the house. As previously mentioned about the pants, this is another example of an occasion in which pants can increase confidence.

If a long day left you with decision fatigue, however, you could just decide to wear the exact same pants. And that is what I did. There is a long list of aphorisms that essentially say, if it works, don’t mess with it - I can’t think of a single one right now, but I’m sure one immediately popped into your head.

The destination for today’s excursion was the coffee shop. There’s a phenomenon in the South that I’m more familiar with than I care to be, having lived here almost my entire life, which I will now describe. It’s hotter than a stolen tamale outside, and maybe you start to, ya know, perspire just a bit, as a good southern lady does.

You walk into any eating or retail establishment, and the air conditioning is so cold, the  perspiration instantly turns into a thin layer of ice, causing every hair on your arms to stand up- as if you were one of those birds that puff out their feathers in the snow to stay warm.

I almost always bring a jacket with me when I go from outdoors to indoors, but I don’t always remember.

My Oliver Charles sweater turned out to be the perfect buffer - just enough for the indoors, but not too much for the outdoors, and no weird looks for the psycho wearing a sweater in Florida. And my arm hairs stayed perfectly flat the whole time. AC-0, Sweater-1

SeaCell Fabric With UPF 50+ Rating Was Perfect For Gardening

At the end of our work days here on the homestead, we love to go outside and check on our plants. We live out in the country and have 3.5 acres of mostly lawn that we’ve decided to slowly convert into a regenerative garden/farm.

It’s slow going, and we have NO idea what we’re doing, but nature is kind, and we’ve had dinners with homegrown sweet potatoes, peppers, turnip greens, lettuce, tomatoes, and herbs.

One of the difficult things about growing food in Florida is the pests that not only like to eat your vegetables, they happen to like to eat you!

The weather gets so cool and nice when the sun starts to set, and there will be the loveliest breeze you can imagine. The cicadas and frogs start to sing, and it’s like a little slice of heaven and my favorite time of day... DUN DUN DUUUNNN cue mass mosquito assault.

Those little pests will stab their stinkin’ hypodermic proboscis right through your yoga pants!! Nevertheless, the garden must be tended, and so one is called to overcome this daunting challenge by donning strange suits of mosquito armor that always look really cool (sarcasm font.)

And yet, I was able to feel delightfully dapper in, what I’m discovering to be, a startlingly chameleon-like garment by pairing it with a pair of specially treated khaki pants that are designed specifically to repel mosquitos.

The UPF 50+ rated sweater worked well in the evening, protecting me from the sun and mosquitos while gardening. Make no mistake; there is nothing glamorous about weeding and digging in the dirt.

But this surprising sweater really has no snobbery about it. It’s neat and tailored and professional when it needs to be, casual when called for, and just darn down-to-earth at just the right moments. I might be falling in love with you, OC Sweater <3.

SeaCell Is One Of The Most Breathable Fabrics, 50% More Breathable Than Cotton

Okay, so June is monsoon season in Florida, and when you combine the heat here with the rain, you get an outdoor steam room. There have been many summers in which I thought to myself, “If I hear the phrase ‘It’s not so much the heat, as it is the humidity!’ one. more. time. I may just take a baseball bat to something that needs a good beating.”

But, alas, they’re still saying it. And I suppose it’s true. It does make things seem hotter when the air has reached 80% humidity meaning nothing is going to evaporate. That wetness is just going to stay where it is for a good, long time, breeze or no breeze.

I’m trying to buy a used USB mic from marketplace and thought I had scheduled to meet up with a college kid wanting to sell one, but she no-showed. So the hubs and I walked around the adorable little shops in Gainesville where we had arranged to meet up.

The stores were great, but the cutest thing we saw was a veritable herd of golden retrievers being trained up by their handlers. Of course, I had to get all up in that flock of pups, and they did not disappoint.

There were many doggie smiles, and I couldn't help but imagine how hot they must be under those dense doggie coats. I certainly didn’t envy them. I actually wished they could be as comfy as I was in my precious.

I haven’t mentioned the SeaCell / organic cotton fabric of this Summer Sweater up to this point, but I swear to you, if I could replace every top I own with nothing but this type of seamless 3D-knit with this type of fiber, I believe I would.

It’s a gloriously breathable and light pique in organic cotton and SeaCell, which, if you haven’t heard of it, is one of the most brilliant eco ideas I’ve ever come across.

It’s made of super clean, sustainable seaweed-based fiber and organic cotton; It’s like the peanut butter and jelly of sweet, sweet softness.

Y’all, I’m a cotton SNOB, and this blend might just be the best I’ve ever owned; that’s how much I love it.

Oliver Charles 3D-Knit Sweaters With Raglan Sleeves Are Perfect For Wide Shoulders

Today was farmer’s market day. We get up early sometimes and go to the morning market - all the good stuff is gone by 10:30 am, and we’re 45 minutes away - it was great not to have to worry about what to wear.

We know buying local and organic is not easy, but it’s worth every ounce of extra effort that we make, and we love connecting with the local growers and knowing how the plants and animals are grown and raised.

It’s nice and cool in the mornings still, July may be a different story, and I decided to roll up my sweater sleeves for a little personal style.

Finding sweaters that fit me well is often quite challenging with my specific physique. While I’m fit, I’m proportioned with long arms, broad shoulders, and a short, straight waist. Many sweaters are way too long, with sleeves that are too short. If I get a smaller size, it’s too small for the broad shoulder/big boob combo, and bigger sizes are way too long and too blousy.

So I was genuinely worried about how the Oliver Charles sweater was going to fit. I was like, “I hope I don’t have to tuck it in.” But, yet again, I was surprised at how perfectly perfect it is.

This goody-two-shoes sweater has a raglan shoulder which is PERFECT (did I say “perfect?”) for my build since there’s no seam halfway to my neck. And I don’t know how, but it almost seems like the more you wear it, the better it fits, which I don’t understand at all; I just know it does.

I honestly cannot believe I’m gushing about a sweater.

Sensory Friendly Sweater Made Of SeaCell, A UPF 50+ Rated Natural Material

This final adventure of the Summer Sweater Challenge, and it was truly no challenge at all.

Not deciding what I have to wear on a given day, and instead, outfit repeating is like getting a tiny little gift of extra bandwidth that I can spend on other, more useful contemplations like what to have for breakfast or what one would name a sweater, for example.

I admittedly did not get super creative with crafting outfits or force myself to go on any out-of-the-ordinary field trips, and my life isn’t that exciting at the moment. But authenticity is an adventure in itself, and so we’ve arrived at another day in the life of normal people doing normal things.

We did go to the plant nursery, which is tremendously exciting to me, evident by the photo for today’s segment. The standout for me was being able to be out in the sun, repotting plants during the most intense solar hours of the day.

I have very sensitive skin, and I’ve had issues wearing synthetic fabrics that cause breakouts when I wear them all day. So having long sleeves that work as sun protection and don’t cause overheating is a must in my wardrobe.

I never really considered a sweater for this purpose - I usually wear a gauzy cotton top because they’re light and breezy - but Miss Bliss performed like a champ. And zero skin irritation. Wow.

I would never have thought in one million years that this sweater could fit so well into my unfancy, sort of all-over-the-place lifestyle. But it sure does.

I learned I had a lot of assumptions about what a sweater could and couldn’t do. I learned about new natural fabrics, and I learned that outfit repeating with a versatile sweater isn’t boring at all. And it’s not even smelly (I did wash it once, I have a Great Dane that slobbers a lot.)

If you believe that every good wardrobe starts with owning less and owning better, consider buying yourself an OLIVER CHARLES sweater.