I recently bought a straw hat and a gaiter to protect my face from the sun. I wear both at the same time to protect my face. I only wear the gaiter on my lower face over my chin when I am in a place that has no shade at all. The gaiter protects my neck and lower face. Here is me wearing the gaiter and hat below.
Some people wear their gaiter over their mouth, and I will show a pic of me wearing it this way.
I am only showing this for demonstration purposes. Wearing it over my mouth makes it harder to breathe, and when I am hiking, I need to be able to breathe very well.
The straw hat is made by Sibling Co and is a no-name brand hat I found on Amazon. I wanted to try it out since it has a five-inch brim, and underneath the brim, it had a black lining underneath to keep the sun out. The hat also comes with a drawstring which is mandatory for me. Without this, the hat will blow off my head and will set sail. I like a straw hat in heavy wind because the brim will not blow up like some hats will. Also, the brim is enormous, so you will get a lot of sun protection with this hat.
Now for the bad parts about this hat. You do get a large amount of sun protection due to the big brim, but at the same time, this does obscure your vision a bit. Also, it suffers from one problem a lot of straw hats suffer from, and that is the top part of the hat is not completely sealed off from the sun since it has a few small holes. They are small on this hat, but a little bit of sun will go through and get to your head. I have had no problem with this, but if you demand a hat that doesn’t let any sun go through, this is not the hat for you. The actual brim is completely sealed from the sun since it has a black lining, which is better than most straw hats. If you want a straw hat wholly closed off from the sun, I recommend this Coolibar hat.
The gaiter is a KastKing Sol Armis Neck Gaiter. This is pretty cheap and is UPF 50, and has excellent sun protection. As I stated before, you can wear this in a variety of ways. When I wear the gaiter, I will be hotter in it at first, but in about 45 minutes to an hour, I will sweat, which will cool me off. Again, as I stated, I only recommend a gaiter if you are in a place with no shade at all.
Overall wearing both of these items will give you the ultimate sun protection. I always carry my hat and my gaiter in my car. The only other drawback to wearing these items is that it doesn’t look very fashionable, but that is the price to pay to fight sunburn and skin cancer.