The UV Standard 801 celebrates its 20th anniversary

This year marks the 20th anniversary since the introduction of the UV Standard 801 – a process developed to test the sun protection factor of textiles.

The standard was developed and founded in 1998 by three testing institutes: the Hohenstein Group, the Swiss textile testing institute TESTEX and the Austrian textile research institute OETI.

The UV Standard 801 tests the UPF of a textile in a defined manner, even under typical usage conditions. For swimwear and sports clothings, this could be, for example, aspects like the stretching and dampening of the textile, the wear and tear caused by washing and the age of the textile. For shading textiles such as blinds, diverse weather conditions must be considered.

Only a textile that has been tested with UV Standard 801 can therefore offer reliable sun protection, even in its everyday usage condition. With textiles labelled with the UV Standard 801, consumers can be sure that they are purchasing high quality products and will be protected even in the worst-case scenario.

During the last 20 years the UV Standard 801 testing community has grown and now comprises of eight testing institutes throughout Europe. The following have joined the three founding members: CITEVE (Portugal), AITEX (Spain), IFTH (France), The CENTRO TESSILE COTONIERO E ABBIGLIAMENTO (Italy) as well as the Danish Technological Institute (Denmark).