Triple-action odour control technology

The two Swiss innovators for functional performance clothing, Odlo and HeiQ, have co-launched HeiQ Pure SPQR, a triple-action sustainable odour control technology, another breakthrough in the HeiQ Fresh Tech product family.

Smelling fresh allows us to do what we like without having to worry about bad smell on our apparel. That insight brought these two companies together already 13 years ago, as HeiQ developed for Odlo an odour control textile finish that would last 100 washes – known as Effect by Odlo.

“Effect by Odlo set the standard for performance wear with effective odour control. Great but not yet perfect means that we never stop refining the solution for our consumers,” said Knut Are Høgberg, CEO of Odlo. For the past three years, HeiQ and Odlo spent thousands of hours in the laboratory and in the field to develop HeiQ Pure SPQR, which is the latest breakthrough in the HeiQ Fresh Tech product family and will be engineered into Odlo’s Spring/Summer’2020 next-to-skin products.

HeiQ Pure SPQR is derived from renewable and recycled sources, and delivers a triple-action for an unprecedented odour control efficiency: first, with only one-tenth of silver-ion content as compared to general silver-based odour control treatments, it is able to effectively impair the metabolism of bacteria (the process that turns odourless sweat into body odour). This is due to the second action – bio-based amino sugar polymer anchors silver-ions to amplify their performance and durability. 

And third, at a microscopic level, the amino sugar polymer creates a durable barrier film around the fibre, preventing odour compounds from sticking on the textile. Thus garments can be washed easily at low temperature, which extends the usable life of the garment and is more sustainable. “We have tested odour control treatments from multiple suppliers. The result from the Odlo-HeiQ co-innovation is by far better than anything else we find in the market today,” Høgberg added.