Fruit of the Loom Men’s Breathable V-Neck T-Shirts are no longer available
I’m bummed. I suppose I should have seen that they weren’t terribly popular, and stocked up on them while I had the chance.
But I didn’t, and now they are no more.
Technically, I don’t terribly care if the brand is Fruit of the Loom or not. I’m generally a fan of that brand, because I think they just put out a high quality product. But if someone else comes up with a T-Shirt made of the same material, I’d happily buy from them.
These particular T-Shirts were made of a fabric that had both polyester and spandex in it. So the shirts cling to my torso well, which makes moisture wicking particularly effective in them. Hello 21st Century! I’m a fan.
The label says they are 91% cotton, 5% polyester, and 4% spandex. The label is also sublimated dye into the fabric, so here two years later, the label is as clear as can be. I do like tagless shirts. But most of the other tagless T-Shirts I have were printed with some crap ink on top of the material, that then flakes off in the wash. But these Fruit of the Loom shirts still look good, which is a testament to high quality design and manufacture.
They are simply high quality T-Shirts. Which is why I am bummed they didn’t make it in the market. They were made in Pakistan. Anyone over there have a stash left over that they want to sell?
Jockey Men’s Underwear Sport Microfiber Boxer Brief; pricing on Amazon signals me they think I am a chump
Again with the theme that I like modern fabrics / materials, I like the Jockey Men’s Underwear Sport Microfiber Boxer Brief. The material is great: 80% polyester, 20% spandex. I also very much like the horizontal fly, and the positioning of it.
However, at one time, Jockey was selling these on Amazon in two-packs, for $24.
Today, you can buy them from Jockey themselves, and the price is two for $24.
But today, on Amazon, Jockey only sells them in single packs, for $18.
$6 per piece markup, because I’m buying them from Amazon? What do they think I am? A chump?
Apparently, Jockey thinks I am a chump.
Yeah, I’m buying Terramar Men’s 6″ SilkSkins AIRCOOL Boxer Briefs with Fly instead. $11 per piece. From Amazon.
I have three reasons for buying from Amazon, and not buying direct from Jockey:
- Amazon Prime rewards credit card: I’m building up points; Jockey isn’t going to give me that through direct sales, and in order to get that through Amazon, I have to pay 50% more per piece than Jockey themselves will sell it to me. Apparently, Jockey thinks I am a chump.
- Amazon Prime delayed shipping: I get $1 toward music / mp3 files for download.
- Amazon Smile donation: one half of 1 percent of my shopping goes to a charity of my choice. Sure, for the one purchase of six pieces of underwear, that only generates 36 cents of donation; but that’s better than nothing, and over time, it builds up.
The fly on the Terramar is way high up, which is not where I would like it to be. I don’t know if the legal system is structured so that Terramar can move the fly down to the location that Jockey has it, without getting sued by Jockey for copying the design.
The Terramar briefs are also a slightly different material: 86% nylon + 14% spandex versus 80% polyester + 20% spandex. The result is that they don’t grip as tightly as the Jockey briefs. I prefer the Jockey Microfiber brief material. I have since come to prefer the Terramar briefs. When one is sitting in a chair, the Terramar briefs are more comfortable than the Jockey briefs. Also, the material is softer, which is nice.
But so far (that I know of), Terramar has never structured a deal where they insulted my intelligence for buying their product through Amazon.
Quality of product
I’ve also noticed that the Fruit of the Loom stuff fits well, where other brands are built for short people. Perhaps by cutting the material short, the manufacturer thinks they are going to save a half penny per undershirt. They save a minuscule amount of money; and, I expose ass-crack. Wonderful.
Or, I can get the Fruit of the Loom stuff, and the shirts fit correctly from the beginning. The Fruit of the Loom stuff is also built with good “registration”.
In the printing industry, there is the concept of how well things are printed in relation to each other. Ink gets laid down in colors (passes), so the registration is how well the red print lines up with the blue print lines up with the yellow print. You want green (but only want to pay for three color printing)? Print yellow on top of blue. But the registration had better be good, because otherwise one edge of the green image will be blue, and the opposite edge, yellow.
In T-Shirts, the registration is between the neck hole, and the sides (seams). The badly sewn shirts have the neck hole off-center from the sleeves. I won’t wear these for work; but, in place of a pajama top, an oversize T-Shirt works fine. One interesting piece of technology is cloth that is woven into a tube, so there is no seam at all. I have no idea of how this is done; I imagine that it is a technological miracle. And I suppose if seams bothered me, I’d really like the seamless feature. However, if the fabric doesn’t have side seams, then the line of where the side falls is where the bottom of the sleeve (armpit) joins the shirt. Poor registration is a big problem here. I’ve seen T-Shirts where the neck hole was two inches off center from the armpit holes. Not a fan.
I’ve never seen this problem with the Fruit of the Loom shirts. Which is another reason I like the brand.
Hanes brand does have registration problems, in my experience. The cheapest Amazon house brand shirts are the worst.