Want To Save The Oceans? Then Go And Buy A Bikini

Not that long ago Fourth Element launched their Ocean Positive range of swimwear. The idea behind the range was to give people a purchasing choice. You can either buy a bikini or a pair of budgie smugglers that has a direct impact on ocean welfare or you could buy something else and live with the guilt. What impact can buying a bloody bikini have on ocean welfare you might well ask. Well for a start the Ocean Positive range are made from recycled fishing nets. These “ghost nets” are abandoned by fisherman after snagging on reefs and wrecks and pose a significant threat to marine life. In short they continue to fish even though abandoned, trapping a staggering variety of marine life and resulting in the loss of thousands upon thousand of creatures each year. They also destroy coral as currents drag them across reefs, literally scrubbing the reef clean. But thanks to a recycling process created by the Italian company Aquafil and the Ghost Fishing Project which enlists teams of divers to recover the nets in the first place, this scourge of the ocean suddenly becomes a high quality nylon yarn capable of being turned into a bikini. 

Anyone who has read about ghost nets and their sickening impact on the marine environment would be hard pressed to argue that their removal is a bad thing. And, if you watch the video messages from such people as Amanda Cotton, Dave Schott and others which are on the Ocean Positive website, you would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the images of fish, sharks, seals and turtles that have died after being trapped in the nets. So the concept of Ocean Positive is a noble one and unlike some other noble concepts that often turn out to be nothing more than hot air, the team at Fourth Element have turned the concept into a tangible product that you can buy.

The oceans are cleared of ghost nets by heroic divers around the world so saving marine life. The Italians recycle the nets into nylon yarn which apparently means that twelve thousand tons of waste has been eliminated, seventy thousand barrels of oil have not had to be used, forty-two thousand tons of CO2 hasn’t been released into the atmosphere and enough energy has been saved to power a small town for a year or the city of Rome for ten days and to square the circle in all this, all we as consumers have to do, is buy a bikini. What is there not to like about all this? Without wanting to sound like cheerleaders for Fourth Element – whose advertising is pretty dam slick anyway - we can't find much wrong with any of this. It all looks and sounds like a true environmental business success story. There is just one thing though, something that could be a real deal breaker. What if those bikinis aren't any good? You see no matter how noble the idea is, if the resulting product is, shall we say, a bit crap. Then the whole concept falls flat on its noble nose. So there was nothing else to do then but buy some Ocean Positive swimwear and compare them with a brand leader in swimwear to see if the noble idea held water so to speak. The brand we choose was Speedo. The reason is simple. We all own a pair of Speedos already and didn't have to buy anything else to do the comparison. We want to give you a honest review here but we don't want it to cost us too much, we've got beer money to think about after all. Now, we have no idea about how Speedos are manufactured or whether they are recycled or not but that's not the point. Speedo is the leading player in the market and they make very, very good swimwear.

Anyway we bought some Ocean Positive bikini's and swims shorts and put them to the test in the cold waters of Britain. The first thing to note is that Ocean Positive uses some very attractive and very athletic looking models in its advertising. Such people would look good even after running a marathon dressed in nothing more than a refuse bag. We, on the other hand, and we suspect a great many of you are not these people. Though we like to think of ourselves as relatively fit and toned individuals, we do tend to sag a bit in places. The second thing to note is that Ocean Positive swimwear is designed to be worn under a wetsuit and the third thing to note, as we have pointed out before in our review of the Fourth Element Pro Dive Amphibious shorts, is that Fourth Element have a bit of a sizing issue. Now either everyone in the Fourth Element sizing department is an attractive, athletic model who has never met the average diver and his belly or they are confusing the metric and imperial systems of measurement. The result of all this is that the swimwear is pretty snug. So snug in fact that, if you're a man your voice is going to go up a few octaves and if you are a woman you might find you bulge in places you rather wish you didn't. So we recommend that you err on the side of caution and go for a larger size than normal. Interestingly we found no problem with the Speedo sizing, all fitted perfectly. Once the size issue was sorted both sets of swimwear were equally comfortable. Both Ocean Positive and Speedo bikinis' were easy to get in and out of, having no “annoying” ties and clasps that you find on fashion bikinis. We did find that the Ocean Positive fitted more easily under our wetsuits and didn't bunch up in those awkward uncomfortable places like the Speedos did. However we suspect that had we bothered to purchase a more expensive style of Speedo this would not have been a problem either.

The Malaku Bikini won't look this good on everyone!

The Ocean Positive range is rather limited at the moment, but the designs that are available were generally well received, the bikini wearers among us preferred the black Malaku design to any of the others. Black, apparently gentlemen, is more slimming. The deeper voiced among us had even less choice having to settle for either a black or blue pair of budgie smugglers or a pair of black or blue Cayman swim shorts. The swim shorts won the vote as only “twats wear trunks” or something like that. Speedo, as can be expected, has a massive range and Ocean Positive can't really compete on that front. It can however compete on price. Speedo's vast range means that there are decent swimsuits available from around £16 to well over £70 whilst the Ocean Positive range is priced at around £40 for women and £23 for men which is hardly expensive. Then again neither price nor limited range means much when you consider the benefits of the underlying concept. This then is the crux of the matter. In general we found no real difference between the brands. Both performed well, both looked stylish and both were relatively inexpensive. So what it all boils down to, is the concept of how Ocean Positive are made. Take that into consideration and there really is no contest. Ocean Positive then, doesn't fall flat on its noble nose and is, in our opinion, pretty damn good.

In fact we think they are so good that every diver, snorkeller, water enthusiast or beach lover should go out and buy a rash vest, a bikini or even a pair of twat trunks. Yes, the range is a little limited at the moment and yes they might feel a little snug in places and yes, you might sometimes be a little creeped out by the fact that the piece of material cradling your crotch was once full of dead fish but none of that matters because you will feel good about yourself. You have done something positive about ocean welfare. And all you had to do to get this euphoric sense of doing something noble and worthwhile was to buy a piece of swimwear. So go and buy some Ocean Positive stuff and feel good about yourself.