A Guide to Wetsuit Thicknesses and Temperatures

What Is Natural Rubber?

All our wetsuits use neoprene-free rubber, which comes from the sap of hevea trees and helps lessen our dependence on extractive materials such as petrochemical- or limestone-based neoprene. You can read about our journey with neoprene-free alternatives in this natural rubber article.

Wetsuit Thicknesses and Water Temperatures at a Glance

Here’s a quick overview of the suggested water temperatures for each wetsuit thickness.

Lite Tops and Spring Suits

Wetsuit thickness: 1.5 mm and 2 mm
Recommended water temperatures: 65°–75° F / 18°–23° C.

The Regulator® Lite series includes our wetsuit tops and spring suits. These are for those days when the water and weather are the type of warm you can get a little chilly in. You could wear them in many different locations—from the summer tropical waters of Hawaiʻi and Fiji to Southern California in the late spring and, occasionally, all the way into fall. They come in many shapes and cuts and are versatile for when the water and weather call for just a little bit of rubber. Patagonia Oceans Ambassador and Pipeline tube-hound Eala Stewart likes to pair his spring suits with boardshorts. “This winter (2024 into 2025), I surfed in a spring suit every session at Pipe and with my Hydrolock Boardshorts over the top,” he told us.

The 1.5 to 2 millimeters (mm) of neoprene-free rubber offers warmth, but sometimes you’ll wear Regulator® Lite gear to protect yourself from the sun and wind. If you’ve ever been wetsuit-less in 80-degree water with overcast skies and gusts at a steady 15+ knots, you know that wind can have a significant effect on your body temp. The light layer of rubber also protects skin when you’re bouncing off the reef (if you’re into those sorts of waves). They come in many different shapes and sizes. But typically, surfers’ go-to spring suits, especially when you get into the various styles of arms and legs, are a mix of what the day’s conditions call for and personal preference.

Lite Vest

The Regulator® Lite Vest is a sleeveless 1.5 mm wetsuit top. This is the vest you grab for long sessions in warm water. While it’s recommended for water up to 75 degrees, it’s not uncommon to wear a vest when the water is hovering in the 80-degree range. It provides warmth in the torso and allows your paddling arms to meet zero resistance. The 1.5 mm rubber also offers padding in your chest area and protects skin from both the sun and rashing up on the wax. It comes with a pretty radical tan line free of charge.

Lite Long-Sleeved Top

The 1.5 mm Regulator® Lite Long-Sleeved Top is like the vest but, well, with sleeves. The long sleeves offer protection from the wind and sun, and the top pairs well with boardshorts and swimsuit bottoms. Like the vest, this wetsuit top offers some of the creature comforts of a standard wetsuit but lets the water flow freely from the waist down. You’ll want to wear it on warm, sunny days or on overcast days in warm water. These tops come in both pullover and zippered varieties for ease of entry.

Lite John/Jane

The 2 mm Regulator® Lite Short/Long John (men’s) and Spring/Long Jane (women’s) are the mullet of wetsuits: business down low, party up top. They’re oddly stylish yet surprisingly functional. Both the John/Jane styles come without sleeves (women’s also available with long sleeves) and in either short or long lengths. They feature 2 mm thick neoprene-free rubber throughout, providing enough warmth to get you through marathon sessions on temperate days, and the sleeveless design allows your arms to paddle without any restrictions. They pair great with single-fin longboards and can be seen from spring to fall at most of the right-hand pointbreaks that grace the coast of Southern California.

Lite Spring Suit

This is our standard 2 mm shorty spring suit: short arms and legs and made with 2 mm neoprene-free rubber all the way through. It’s a no-fuss springer, built for temperate water (65°–75° F / 18°–23° C) and wearable in all conditions: sunny, cloudy, windy and even a little rain, as long as the water isn’t going to cool you down.

Regulator® Full Wetsuit Construction and Thickness

We do our wetsuit thickness and patterning different than the rest of the industry. Using thermal bio-mapping research, we learned that surfers lose most of their body heat through their legs. So, for example, instead of building our 3/2 mm full suits with 3 mm at the neck, chest, torso and back and 2 mm in the shoulders, arms and legs, we run the same thickness from the body of the suit down through the legs to combat that heat loss. Basically, our Regulator® 3/2 Full Suit is 2 mm in the arms and shoulders and 3 mm everywhere else. This additional thickness doesn’t compromise performance and adds extra warmth where you need it most.

This construction is used in all our Regulator® full wetsuits and hooded full wetsuits.

All of our Regulator full wetsuits feature an innovative U-ZIP entry that minimizes flushing and makes the suit easy to get on and off.

Regulator® 3/2 Full Wetsuit

Water temperatures: 55°–65° F / 13°–18° C
3.5/3 mm thickness: 3 mm at the neck, chest, torso, back and through the legs. 2 mm at the shoulders and arms.

The Regulator® 3/2 Full Suit is designed for shoulder seasons and winter in places where the water gets chilly, but not too chilly, like Southern California or New South Wales, Australia.

Regulator® 4/3 Full Wetsuit and Hooded Full Suit

Water temperatures: 50°–60° F / 10°–16° C
4/3 mm thickness: 4 mm at the neck, chest, torso, back and through the legs. 3 mm at the shoulders and arms. 3 mm in the hood.

The Regulator® 4/3 Full Suit is your standard depths of winter wetsuit in Southern California, parts of Australia or locales with similar climates around the world. There is also a hooded version that allows you to use it in colder water and avoid brain freeze during those first few duck dives on frosty winter mornings.

Regulator® 5/4 Hooded Full Wetsuit

Water temperatures: 45°–55° F / 7°–13° C
5/4/3 mm thickness: 5 mm at the neck, chest, torso, back and through the legs. 4 mm at the shoulders and arms. 3 mm in the hood.

Okay, now the water is actually getting cold. You need a hood and you’re likely wearing booties. The Regulator® 5/4 Hooded Full Suit (and the 6/5 which we’ll detail below) only comes hooded because without one, each consecutive duck dive and consequent brain freeze, in the water temps this suit calls for, will likely cut your session short. This is the suit you’re grabbing for winter mornings in San Francisco, the Pacific Northwest, down in Chile or even Alaska in the summer.

Regulator® 6/5 Hooded Full Wetsuit

Water temperatures: Below 45° F / 7° C
6.5/5 mm thickness: 6 mm at the neck, chest, torso, back and through the legs. 5 mm at the shoulders and arms. 4 mm in the hood.

The water temps you’re grabbing this suit for are not for the faint of heart. We’re talking the Arctic Circle anytime; Alaskan, Northeastern US and Canadian winters; snow on the beach; icebergs in the lineup and icicles-in-the-eyebrows sort of thing. You need the hood and, also, you’re wearing gloves and booties. The water is near freezing, the outside temp might even be below freezing, but the waves are firing. You’re not gonna not surf, are you?

Wetsuit Accessories

During the winter of ’24/’25, we sent Patagonia Surf Ambassador Kyle Thiermann to a remote area of British Columbia for a wetsuit- and gear-testing surf venture. He had this to say about how gloves impact your overall warmth: “One thing I experimented with on this trip was wearing different thicknesses of gloves with the wetsuits and noticing how it impacted my temperature for two-hour plus sessions,” he said. “I wore my 5 mm lobster claw gloves with a hooded 4/3 one day, and it kept me warmer than wearing my 5/4 with no gloves. It feels to me like keeping your hands warm determines how the rest of your body feels.”

Consistent with most aspects of wetsuits, how you accessorize booties, hoods and gloves with your full suit is all a matter of what keeps you warm and works for your body.

Cap

Water temperatures: 48°–55°F/9°–13°C
Thickness: 3 mm

The wetsuit cap is something worth keeping in your trunk for days that are a little colder than you’d like. It’s got a chin strap, sits snug on your head and provides additional warmth without having to step up to a hooded wetsuit.

Insertable Hood

Water temperatures: 48°–55° F / 9°–13° C
Thickness: 3 mm

Similar to the wetsuit cap but slides seamlessly under your wetsuit collar to keep your neck warm and to protect against water entry.

Regulator® 2 mm Split Toe Booties

Booties are great: They keep your feet warm and give some extra grip on your surfboard. Some people love them, some prefer to feel their bare feet in the wax, but depending on where you live and how cold the water is, you might need them.

Our 2 mm Split Toe Booties are good for Central through Southern California all winter long. They have a sturdy bottom and an internal split-toe design for increased control and grip. You might also wear them into northern territory, depending on how cold your feet get.

Regulator® 3 mm, 5 mm & 7 mm Booties

Increasing cold calls for increasing bootie thickness. The 3 mm comes in the split-toe variety, while the 5 mm and 7 mm come in the round-toe variety, because when the water is that cold, you’ll want those little piggies to band together.

Regulator® 3 mm, 5 mm & 7 mm Gloves & Mitts

When it’s really cold, you might opt for some gloves. The 3 mm gloves come in the five-fingered variety, while the 5 mm are three-fingered mitts, and the 7 mm are straight-up mittens. The colder the water, the more you want your fingers to huddle together and create warmth among themselves.

Next Steps

For more, check out our entire wetsuit line, our surf stories, and surf clothing.