"Every shirt-wearing man has been there. You're feeling confident and looking good, when out of nowhere an unsightly sweat patch appears, and knocks you off your stride." So say the promoters of FreshMax, the "no sweat shirt" that could be the perfect garment for the one week of the year when everyone suddenly decides to start jogging before work.

FreshMax doesn't stop a man from sweating, but its makers claim that embarrassing patches will never be visible "in high-pressure board meetings . . . or even on that all-important first date". Sadly, the Guardian has yet to appoint me to the board or send me on a first date so I sweat-test the shirt by running as fast as possible with a rucksack strapped to my back.

Sure enough, after half an hour, the back of my shirt is clammy. When I pull it off for a morning shower, the shirt has a patch that's wet to touch but, true to its word, does not show. It draws perspiration away from the skin and spreads it very finely over a large surface area, encouraging it to dry quickly. This sounds rather like any standard wicking sports top, and the shirt feels like one too, yet it is actually 100% cotton. Still, after a day in the FreshMax without deodorant, I am pleasantly baffled not to pick up a whiff of body odour.

The shirt comes in 16 colours and looks pleasant enough if you're an M&S kind of guy. I'm not really a sweaty, alpha bloke myself, but a shifty public figure about to submit to a particularly worrying interrogation – Nick Clegg, perhaps – may never spend a better £50.