Yulex scores 66 out of 100 for wearer health on Toxome's fiber scale, where 100 is cleanest. It's natural rubber tapped from FSC-certified Hevea trees and washed to remove most of the proteins behind latex allergy, which makes it the one wetsuit foam that grows. Like all rubber it's cured with accelerators that can cause skin allergies, and most Yulex suits are 85% natural rubber, 15% synthetic rubber, lined with recycled polyester or nylon.
What is Yulex?
Yulex is a brand of natural rubber, the milky sap tapped from Hevea rubber trees. The company started in Arizona in 2000 working with guayule, a desert shrub, then moved to Hevea for Patagonia, its partner since 2008. Its YULEX PURE process is a water-based wash that strips out most of the latex proteins, and the cleaned rubber is foamed into wetsuits, swimwear and gear. Patagonia shared the recipe with the industry in 2014, and Yulex says more than 50 brands now use it.
Yulex began with guayule, a desert shrub native to the American Southwest, and won FDA clearance in 2008 for a guayule latex medical glove. Patagonia went looking for a neoprene replacement the same year. Its first Yulex suits blended in neoprene, and the brand went fully neoprene-free in 2016. Today's Yulex foam comes from Hevea, the tropical rubber tree behind almost all of the world's natural rubber.
How Yulex is made
Workers cut a thin groove in the bark of a Hevea tree and collect the white latex that drips out. The tree isn't felled, and it keeps producing for decades.
Yulex washes the latex in water to pull out 90 to 99% of the proteins that cause latex allergy, by the company's own testing. Then it's vulcanized, cooked with sulfur and chemicals called accelerators that link the rubber into a springy solid, and blown full of tiny gas bubbles to make foam.
For a wetsuit, the foam is blended with about 15% synthetic rubber for sun and stretch resistance, then glued between two layers of fabric, usually recycled polyester or nylon. Better suits use water-based glue instead of solvent glue.
Is Yulex safe to wear?
The rubber itself is plant-based, so a Yulex suit skips chloroprene, the oil- or limestone-based chemical behind every kind of neoprene. The EPA calls chloroprene likely carcinogenic when breathed in, a risk that sits with factory workers and neighbors more than with the person wearing the suit.
On your skin, the questions are the same as any rubber. Natural latex proteins can cause an immediate allergy, and Yulex removes most of them but not all. Yulex says itself that no test supports calling its rubber hypoallergenic. The curing chemicals, thiurams, carbamates and benzothiazoles, are known causes of a delayed itchy rash called allergic contact dermatitis. And the lining against your skin is recycled plastic.
- Grown, not drilled or mined Tapped from living rubber trees instead of made from oil or limestone.
- Fewer latex proteins A water-based wash removes 90 to 99% of the proteins behind latex allergy, by Yulex's own testing.
- Warm as neoprene The Inertia tested a Patagonia Yulex suit in 8°C water and found it just as warm, if not warmer.
- Traceable forests Yulex rubber comes from FSC- or PEFC-certified sources, which rules out newly cleared rainforest.
Yulex scores on Toxome's natural rubber foam entry. The rubber is plant-based, but every rubber is cured with accelerators that can sensitize skin, which keeps it out of the cleanest tier. A wetsuit scores by all its parts, so the recycled polyester or nylon lining pulls the whole suit lower. See the full method.
Doing this check on every product page yourself is the tedious part. The Toxome Chrome extension reads the composition for you while you shop, so you see whether something is Yulex (and what else is in it) before you buy, not after it arrives.
How to care for Yulex
Yulex, answered
Yulex is a brand of natural rubber from FSC-certified Hevea trees, purified to remove most latex proteins and foamed for wetsuits. It's the main plant-based alternative to neoprene.
For the planet, yes: Yulex reports about 0.7 kg of carbon per kg of raw rubber against about 6.5 for neoprene, by its own numbers. On your skin it's closer, since both are cured with accelerators and both are usually lined with recycled plastic.
The raw rubber is. Most finished Yulex wetsuits are 85% natural rubber and 15% synthetic rubber by polymer content, and no brand we found names the synthetic.
Talk to your doctor first. Yulex removes 90 to 99% of latex proteins by its own testing, which lowers the risk without removing it, and Yulex doesn't call its rubber hypoallergenic.
Not in practice. Cured rubber breaks down slowly, and the foam is bonded to plastic linings. Return it to a take-back program instead.
- YULEX PURE natural rubber · Yulex
- Yulex natural rubber wetsuits · Patagonia
- Wetsuits: A Materials Review · University of Exeter
- Rubber accelerator allergy · DermNet
- Toxicological Review of Chloroprene · U.S. EPA IRIS
The health score reflects wearer health only and mirrors the Toxome app. This guide is educational and is not medical advice.