How to Shade Your Face and Neck on Summer Walks With the EINSKEY Sun Hat

By the end of June in Bend, the sun is up before my coffee is done, and it does not take the hint until almost nine at night. I walk four to six miles most days, partly for my knees and my heart and my sleep, and partly because Juniper, my seven-year-old Australian shepherd mix, will stand at the door and stare at me until I grab the leash. On the river path, there are stretches with no tree cover at all, and I learned the hard way that a baseball cap only protects the top of my head. My forehead, ears, cheeks, and the back of my neck were all getting cooked. That is why I started using the EINSKEY wide brim sun hat, and this is the system I worked out for making it actually do its job on every walk.

The hat itself is simple: a wide brim bucket style with a chin strap, made for men and women, and it has held up through a full summer of daily use. But the hat is only half of it. The other half is how you wear it, when you put it on, and what you do on the parts of the walk where the sun is low and sneaky. Here are the five steps I follow, in the order I follow them.

Step 1: Put the hat on before you step outside, not after you feel the heat

The mistake I made for years was waiting until I was already uncomfortable. By the time my scalp felt hot, the damage to my skin was already underway, and I would spend the rest of the walk playing catch-up, squinting, turning my face away from the sun, and counting the minutes until a shaded stretch. Now I put the EINSKEY hat on at the kitchen counter, right before I fill the water bottle. It takes five seconds, and it means the sun never gets a head start on me.

This matters more than it sounds like. Sun exposure adds up in small doses, and a walk that starts at seven in the morning still has plenty of UV by the time I am heading home. The hat is waterproof too, which I did not expect to care about until a surprise shower rolled in over the Cascades and I finished the last mile with a dry head.

If you walk the same route every day, you know exactly where the sun will be at each point. Put the hat on before you leave, and you never have to think about it again until you are back at the door.

Step 2: Adjust the chin strap so the brim stays put in a breeze

The first time I wore a wide brim hat on a windy day, I spent half the walk holding it on my head with one hand. That is not a walk, that is a chore. The EINSKEY hat has a chin strap, and once I figured out the right tension, the hat stopped being something I thought about at all.

The trick is to keep it snug enough that the hat does not lift when the wind hits, but loose enough that it does not dig into your chin. I adjust it once at the start of the season and then only tweak it if I am wearing a ponytail or a different layer underneath. On the river path, where the wind comes off the water in gusts, the strap is the difference between a comfortable walk and a frustrating one.

It also helps on the trail. Juniper has a habit of stopping dead to stare at deer, and I have learned to stop with her. The hat stays put through all of it, which means I am not constantly reaching up to fix it while also holding the leash.

Step 3: Angle the brim to cover your face, ears, and the back of your neck

A wide brim only helps if it is actually between you and the sun. When I walk east in the morning, I tilt the front of the brim down a little so it shades my eyes and forehead. When I turn around and head west in the afternoon, I do the same thing. The back of my neck gets covered by the brim's full circle, which is something no baseball cap has ever done for me.

I also pay attention to my ears. They are the part of my face I used to forget, and they are the first thing to burn on a long walk. The EINSKEY brim is wide enough that my ears stay in shadow even when the sun is high. That alone was worth the switch.

One note: the hat does not cover your chin or the underside of your jaw when the sun is low in front of you. No hat does. On walks where the sun is really low, I add sunscreen on my chin and neck, and I time my route so I am not walking straight into the worst of it.

Step 4: Pair the hat with the rest of your sun routine

The hat is the centerpiece, but it is not the whole system. I wear sunscreen on my arms and the back of my hands, because those are the parts the hat cannot reach. I carry water for both me and Juniper, and I check the pavement temperature with the back of my hand before I let her walk on it in the middle of the day.

I also wear sunglasses under the hat. The brim blocks the sun from above, and the sunglasses block the glare from the river and the trail. Together, they mean I am not squinting by mile two, and I can actually see the path and the dog and the occasional deer before Juniper does.

The hat is waterproof, which I mentioned already, but it is worth saying again in the context of a routine. I do not have to check the sky before I leave. If it rains, the hat handles it. If it is sunny, the hat handles that too. One less decision to make at six in the morning.

Step 5: Take care of the hat so it lasts more than one summer

the EINSKEY Sun Hat is an investment in your own comfort, and it only pays off if you do not lose it or wreck it. I keep mine on a hook by the door, right next to the leashes, so I never have to hunt for it. When it gets dusty from the trail, I rinse it with cool water and let it air dry. That is the whole maintenance routine.

The EINSKEY hat has been through a full summer of daily walks, a few surprise rain showers, and more than one trip into the back of my small SUV. It still looks the same as it did in June. The brim has not flopped, the strap has not frayed, and the fabric has not faded, which tells me the materials are doing what they are supposed to do.

I also bought a second one to keep in the car, because there is nothing more frustrating than driving to a trailhead and realizing your hat is sitting on the hook at home. That is not a sponsored suggestion, just the kind of thing a person learns after the first time it happens to them.

What Else Helps

Beyond the hat, the things that made the biggest difference to my summer walks were a lightweight long-sleeve shirt for the hottest part of the day, a buff for my neck when I want extra coverage, and a water bottle with a carabiner so I do not have to hold it. None of these are complicated, and none of them require a big budget. They just remove the small frictions that make a walk less pleasant.

For Juniper, the routine is the same every day: water before we leave, a pause in the shade halfway through, and a check of her paws when we get home. She runs warm in the summer, so I keep an eye on her pace and I do not push the distance on hot afternoons. The hat is for me, but the walk is for both of us, and the whole point is that we both enjoy it.

The EINSKEY hat has been through a full summer of daily walks, surprise rain showers, and more than one trip into the back of my small SUV. It still looks the same as it did in June.

Plan the Route Around the Sun

The hat does most of the work, but the route does some of it too. On summer mornings I pick routes that run under trees for the middle stretch, when the sun is getting higher, and save the open sections for the first half hour. Here in Bend that means the river path, where the pines and cottonwoods shade most of the trail, rather than the open ridge trail with nothing but sagebrush. The EINSKEY hat covers my face and neck either way, but shade from trees covers Juniper too, and she cannot wear a hat.

I also check the clock before I head out. Between June and early September we leave by seven at the latest. By ten the pavement on the street side of the path is already warm, and I test it with the back of my hand before Juniper walks on it. If it is too hot for my hand to rest there for a few seconds, it is too hot for her paws. On those days we stick to the dirt path along the river or wait until evening.

Keeping the Hat Ready to Go

A sun hat only works if it is on your head, which means it has to be where you are when you leave. I keep the EINSKEY hat on the hook by the back door next to Juniper's leash, so I grab both at the same moment. A second hat lives in the door pocket of the car for days when we drive to a trailhead. That one small habit means I have not left without a hat once this summer, which I could not have said the year before.

Once a week in summer I rinse the hat in cool water with a little mild soap, press the water out with a towel, and let it dry flat on the counter. Sweat and sunscreen build up on the inside band, and a quick wash keeps it from getting stiff or smelling stale. After a full season of this, the brim still holds its shape and the color has faded only a little.