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At The Swim Hat Co we are a family business that is made up of a team of highly skilled professionals who have years of experience. We undertake garment sourcing and buying, design, screen printing, digital and CAD printing, silicone printing, embroidery – and oh yes, we print swim hats as well. Lots and lots of them.

You might think that printing swim hats is a pretty niche market, and in one sense you would be right, although we have supplied them to thousands of schools, swim clubs, event promoters, charities, local authorities, colleges, universities, and more, and not just in the UK. In fact, we can now offer free shipping on orders of more than 100 customised swim caps to anywhere in the world. 

Our business started in 1985 with one-man printing T-shirts in his garage, but he quickly branched out into customised swimming caps which is one of our staple products, However, we don't stop there. We can produce all sorts of other equipment and personal wear items that are printed with your logo, motto, message, or anything else that you want to tell the world. 

You're going open water swimming? You don't just need your swim cap, you need your trunks or bathing suit, your flippers, and a whole lot more bits and pieces, so you need something to carry them in. We produce kitbags and holdalls that are printed with your club name, your own name, or anything else that you want, in a wide variety of colours. If you would prefer to have them embroidered, we can do that as well. 

Would you believe that we can do all that with an express two-day delivery service? It's hard to believe, but we can. Everything that we do is done in house and not farmed out to a sub-contractor. We produce a design, we do the printing, we can undertake embroidery instead, and we produce a perfect finished product. Place your order on Tuesday morning and you can have it on Thursday – in plenty of time for that weekend event. 

Our team at our large facility in the Midlands can do it all and do it fast. Not only that, they do it with a smile on their faces because we all enjoy what we do. Yes, we know it is supposed to be called "work", but we enjoy it as well. What could be better? A happy "family" makes for great products, great service, and great prices. 

We firmly believe that nowhere can you get better service than at The Swim Hat Co. We can even help if you have just started a new project and don't have any idea what to use for a logo or message. Our team has plenty of ideas because we have been doing it for so long, so just give us a call or email and we'll put our thinking caps on. (We only use our swim caps at the weekends!).

When you are swimming in open water, especially if you are taking part in any sort of competition or race such as a triathlon, you need to consider a couple of things. Possibly the most important of these is that you need to wear a brightly coloured swimming hat because you need to be seen. When you have boaters and jet skiers running up and down the river, or out at sea, you want them to be able to see you easily so that they can take measures to avoid you. After all, at the speed you are going you really don't have time to take any avoiding action, so all you can do is to make yourself as visible as possible. 

For this reason, you obviously don't want to choose a hat that is grey or blue, but one which sticks out like a sore thumb in bright yellow, red, or orange. That way you have a much greater chance of being spotted and giving the jet skiers or boaters plenty of time to take avoiding action. 

The next thing that you need to consider when choosing open water swimming hatsis your own comfort. This means considering the material from which the swimming hat is made. You can get swimming hats made from a number of different materials such as lycra, latex, silicone, and even neoprene. Lycra swimming hats are thin and allow water to pass through them. This means that they do not keep your hair dry and they are therefore not as fast as latex, silicone, or neoprene, so are obviously out of the question from that point of view if you are entering a competition. 

Latex swimming hats are not very long-lasting, and they also have a tendency to become sticky which means that they can pull your hair as you put them on and take them off. You can try putting baby powder into them to dry them out, but they still won't last as long as silicone or neoprene hats. 

Silicone swimming hats are by far and away the most popular, and probably account for 80% of all the swimming hats made today. They don't get sticky like latex, and they are easy to put on and take off. Being a thicker material, they are good for open water, which is often cooler than your local baths, because they keep the heat in for longer – again something to consider in a triathlon. At The Swim Hat Co we sell more silicone hats than anything else. 

Neoprene is the thickest, and therefore the warmest material and is the same material that wetsuits are made of. However, they are very much tighter than other swimming hats and can feel restrictive.