Women's Hats
Buy and sell women’s hats in Costa Rica.
Hikers heading up Chirripó from San Gerardo de Rivas are told to pack two hats: a wool hat for a summit that can drop below freezing before dawn, and a brimmed one for the hard sun that follows. Women’s hats run across that whole span, new and pre-owned: floppy straw brims for Cahuita or Uvita, bucket hats that roll into a daypack, caps with an opening for a ponytail, visors, felt fedoras and knitted beanies. The material matters as much as the shape, because a hat that cannot take an afternoon downpour is a hat for one dry week.
Sun hats by brim, from the floppy beach hat to the visor:
the brim decides how much shade you get and how much wind it catches. A floppy wide brim covers face, neck and shoulders on the sand but flaps on a boat, so look for a chin cord. A bucket hat crushes into a bag and comes out the same shape. A ponytail cap has an opening at the back for a high ponytail or a bun, which is why it stays put on a run. A visor leaves the head open: cool on a tennis court, no help on a midday hike. The lenses that work under a brim are in women’s sunglasses, and running caps and visors overlap with women’s sportswear.
Paper straw, raffia and the afternoon downpour:
plenty of beach hats that look like straw are twisted paper. Paper straw is light and cheap and holds a crisp shape, but one proper soaking softens it, the brim sags, and it never recovers. Raffia, a palm fibre, shrugs off a drizzle and can be rolled into a suitcase. For Monteverde, where mist and drizzle blow through most afternoons, or any walk that might outlast the morning sun, a cotton or polyester bucket hat is the sensible choice, and the fabric ones are the only kind likely to carry a UPF rating.
The wool hat for Chirripó and the highland mornings:
the knitted beanie hardly leaves the drawer in the lowlands, but on Chirripó, at the Irazú crater at sunrise or crossing Cerro de la Muerte at night, it is the hat that matters. Wool or a wool blend stays warm when the mist dampens it. Most are bought for one climb and then put away, so a second-hand one has often barely been worn.
A beach-stall straw hat against a Columbia booney:
a plain straw or paper beach hat costs around ₡7,000 to ₡15,000 new, and the money goes on the look rather than the material. A quick-dry booney or bucket hat from Columbia or The North Face, with a UPF label and a cord, sits nearer ₡30,000. Those fabric hats are the ones worth listing used: nylon and polyester survive rain, sweat and a hand wash, so a clean one still has most of its working life ahead of it. A paper straw hat that has done one holiday has nothing left to sell, and goes better thrown in with a beach bag.
Mould under the sweatband and a crown that has lost its shape:
turn the hat over first. Black or green specks under the sweatband, or a musty smell, mean straw that was put away damp, and mould does not wash out of straw. Broken strands round the crown and a drooping brim mean a straw hat has been rained on or sat on. Natural straw and raffia can be steamed back into shape over a pan of boiling water; paper straw cannot. On fabric hats, look for a stiff, yellowed band from sunscreen and sweat, and check that the toggle on the chin cord still grips.
A hat measured inside the band, and a buyer with her hair done:
run a tape measure round the inside of the sweatband and give that rather than the S/M or L/XL tag, because every brand cuts those sizes its own way. Copy the material from the label, and say if the hat has been caught in the rain. Photograph it from above for the brim, from the side for the crown and from inside for the band and label. Bring a straw hat to the meeting in a box or on your head, never folded into a backpack, and ask the buyer to come with her hair the way she wears it on the beach or the trail: a bun or a high ponytail changes how a hat sits more than half a size does.