Best Spearfishing Wetsuit (2026): Open Cell Seals to Skin and Hates Fingernails

Open cell, and why it changes everything

Neoprene is a foam full of gas bubbles. How the inside surface is finished is the whole distinction.

A lined suit, which is what almost all surfing and scuba wetsuits are, has fabric bonded to the inside. It slides on easily, resists tearing, and the fabric layer holds a film of water against you that your body has to keep warming.

An open cell suit has no lining. The bubbles are cut open at the surface, leaving a slightly tacky raw neoprene face that suctions directly onto your skin. Almost no water circulates, so there is nothing to keep rewarming, and the same thickness is dramatically warmer than a lined suit.

The costs are real and you should know them before buying:

• You cannot put it on dry. Raw neoprene grips skin hard. You need soapy water, a proper wetsuit lubricant, or hair conditioner poured inside, and the suit goes on wet and slippery.
• It tears easily. A fingernail dragged across the inside will open it up. People cut their nails before getting into one.
• It needs careful rinsing and drying, inside out, out of the sun.

For breath-hold diving the warmth is worth all of that, because you are stationary and waiting rather than swimming hard, and getting cold ends the session long before anything else does.

Thickness, two-piece fit, and whether camo matters

Thickness is set by water temperature, and spearos run thicker than surfers because they are not generating heat.

• 1.5 to 3mm — tropical water, above about 26°C
• 5mm — the general-purpose choice, roughly 18 to 25°C
• 7mm and up — cold water, below about 18°C

All three suits here are 5mm, which is the right default for temperate and subtropical diving.

Two-piece beats one-piece for spearfishing. The standard arrangement is a jacket with an attached hood and a crotch flap, worn over high-waisted trousers that come up to the chest. The overlap at the waist is double-layered, which is the warmest part of the suit and sits right over your core. A two-piece is also far easier to get into, and you can wear just the trousers in warm water.

The Omer Blackstone here is a jacket, so it is half of a two-piece and you buy trousers to match.

A loading pad on the chest is the detail that marks a real spearfishing suit: a reinforced patch where the butt of the gun sits while you load it against your sternum. Without one you wear a hole through the chest quickly.

Camouflage genuinely works, and not for the romantic reason. Fish detect contrast and movement, and a broken-up pattern reduces your outline at distance. What matters is matching the environment: a brown reef pattern on a kelp bottom, blue pelagic patterns for open water. The Lampuga here is a pelagic pattern, intended for blue water rather than reef.

Getting into it and keeping it alive

Lubricate generously. Soapy water in a bottle, a dedicated wetsuit lube, or cheap hair conditioner mixed with water. Pour it inside, slosh it around, and the suit slides on. Dry skin and raw neoprene do not negotiate.

Cut your fingernails. The commonest way an open cell suit gets damaged is the owner putting it on.

Go slowly over heels and shoulders. Those are where the material stretches most and where tears start.

Rinse in fresh water inside out, every time. Salt crystals in open cell neoprene abrade it from within and stiffen it.

Dry inside out, out of direct sun. UV destroys neoprene faster than anything else you will do to it.

Store on a wide hanger or folded loosely, never creased on a thin hanger, which puts permanent fold lines into the foam and kills the insulation along them.

Repair tears immediately with neoprene cement. A small tear becomes a long one the next time you put the suit on.

Weight changes with thickness. A thicker suit is more buoyant, so your weight belt needs rebalancing whenever you change suits. Check neutral buoyancy at about ten metres, not at the surface.