Review: INKnBURN Tech Tube

April 19, 2013 by Trisha Berube 1 Comment

Modeling for Instagram.

I know a lot of you runners like to wear hats on sunny days, especially in San Diego you all seem to swear by them. But, I don’t like them. They feel hot and big and binding on my head, I feel like I can’t see everything with the visor in my way, and…alright I’ll say it…they’re just not feminine. But I’m not an idiot (well, not most of the time), so I know that especially on hot, sunny days, I need something to protect my head and keep sweat out of my eyes. Sometimes I can’t stand anything on my head at all because it’s too hot, but otherwise, I prefer to wear tube-shaped head wraps. And since I’m such a big fan of INKnBURN, you know I had to try out their tech tube.

Like all the other INKnBURN products, the Tech Tube is super adorable. It comes in everyone’s favorite designs like Current (the style I have) and Lust, and it looks great (it goes really well with my new Leaf Tech Shirt, by the way). Just look at these tech tubes on InB’s beautiful clothing model, Holly Miller!

Holly looks great in everything!

The tech tube is also really versatile. You can wear it as a headband, under or over your hair. You can wear it around your neck and face as a gaiter on cold days. You can un-bunch it and cover your whole head. You can wear it around your wrist to dab sweat from your face. If you’re skinny enough, you can even use it as a belt to hold small items (I’ve seen my friend Krista do this with a buff).

InB’s tech tube is made out of the same material as their tech shirts: lightweight polyester mesh. You know, that sweat-wicking fabric everyone likes. And as advertised, the fabric does absorb and wick sweat from your body. But as a comparison to other head wraps I’ve used, which are made of cotton blends, the InB tech tube seems to hold in more warmth. Because of this, I think it would probably be best suited for cooler days. It’s also a little less stretchy than other head wraps, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you wear it and the size/shape of your head. My head is rather small, and my hair is fine and quite silky/slippery. The combination of those two things means that on a windy day, my tech tube doesn’t stay put on my head. I almost lost it last week when I ran at the beach!

That said, almost nothing ever stays put on my pin-like, silky little head. People with less pin-like heads and/or thicker hair always tend to have less of an issue than me.

To combat the slip-off, I will often wear low pigtails or a pair of messy buns to hold the tube in place, toward the front of my head. Or I bunch a majority of the fabric to the front of my forehead, close to my eyebrows, which keeps the tube leveraged correctly. A head wrap hardly does any good keeping sweat away if it’s behind your hairline, anyhow.

Holding the tech tube on my head with some messy buns.

Hot yoga class is my favorite place to wear the tech tube. I sweat my butt off in that class and the tech tube covers up my yucky sweaty head, and keeps me from having to dab my face every thirty seconds.

Outside of exercise, I like to wear my INKnBURN tech tube as a fashion accessory. It’s pretty enough to wear with my yoga pants and a t-shirt (the SoCal uniform) when I run errands around town or to cover up a bad hair day. Which I have a lot of, now that I work from home and have become too lazy to use my hairdryer.

Check out all the tech tube styles on INKnBURN’s website!

And also, check me out on a St. Patrick’s Day run in the new INKnBURN craze: the Leaf Tech Shirt! Looks awesome, and it’s well-timed too…since green is Pantone’s 2013 Color of the Year.

And yes, my socks do say “BEER” on them.