For those brave enough to swim outdoors in winter, there have, until recently, been two options: wear an ordinary swimsuit and feel the thrill/horror of cold water on your skin for a few minutes; or pull on a wetsuit and stay in for longer, but without the endorphin high.
But there is now a third way: a cold-water swimsuit, made from thermal fabric to keep your core warmer for longer and lengthen your time in the water. A wetsuit may seem the obvious choice for winter swimming, but many open-water wetsuits won’t offer much warmth in water below 10C, and the effort of putting one on at this time of year when swims are short often isn’t worth it (see more detail below). But is a cold-water swimsuit any different from a standard suit, and are they worth buying? I tested seven of the best to find out.
