the boring bit
that actually matters.

Denier is a measure of yarn thickness. 450D fabric uses thin yarn — light, cheap, and fine for a garden chair that lives under a veranda. 1680D uses yarn nearly four times heavier.

In a pool bean bag, that difference decides whether the seams hold when two adults land on it wet, and whether the surface goes fuzzy after a season of being dragged across concrete.

the spec, in full

Property	Typical pool bean bag	The Aqua Bag
Yarn weight	450D	1680D
Fabric weight	~200–300gsm	550gsm
Coating	Light PU or none	PVC, fully waterproof
Colour fastness	Often untested	ISO 105-B02, Grade 4+
Tested by	The factory, if at all	Intertek
Cover	Frequently sealed	Removable and washable
Inner liner	Sold separately or absent	Included
Zip	Often a pull tab	Child-safe, no tab

what “Grade 4” actually means

Colour fastness is measured on the blue wool scale under ISO 105-B02. A sample is exposed to controlled light alongside eight reference swatches, and the grade is whichever reference faded by the same amount.

The scale is not linear. Each step up roughly doubles the light exposure needed to produce the same fading. Grade 3 is a fabric that visibly shifts within a single harsh summer. Grade 4 holds through it. Grades 7–8 are what you'd specify for commercial outdoor awnings meant to last five years or more.

We hold our mill to Grade 4 as a floor, and we don't take the mill's word for it. The 2026 fabric was tested by Intertek, an independent laboratory, on a dark colourway and a pale one — Deep Sea and Mist — because those are the two ends where fastness is hardest to hold. Both came back above Grade 4 under ISO 105-B02, xenon-arc, exposure cycle A1.

waterproof, and able to dry out

Those are two different things, and the second one is where most pool bean bags fail. A sealed waterproof bag keeps water out until it doesn't — and once moisture gets past the zip it has nowhere to go. That's how you end up with a mouldy bean bag.

Ours is a removable cover over an inner liner. The cover unzips completely and goes in the wash. The liner keeps the fill contained. Both can dry properly, which is the only thing that reliably stops mould.

about the water it takes on

This is the thing we get asked about most, and it's worth explaining properly, because it isn't a fault.

The bag is meant to take water on. That's what lets it sit low and mould around you in the pool instead of skidding across the surface like a lilo. A pool bean bag that stayed completely dry inside would be an air mattress, and it would be far less comfortable.

The consequence is that when you go to lift it straight out, it's heavy. The fix is simply to let the water leave before you lift it: open the zip a few centimetres, give it a moment, and it drains in seconds rather than sitting there full.

You'll notice the zip has no pull tab. That's deliberate — a dangling tab on a product that lives around a pool and around kids is a choking hazard, so it's a child-safe closure. A paperclip, a key or a bent bit of wire opens it in a second, and most people leave one hanging by the pool.

On UV

The bean bag fabric is UV stabilised — the coating and treatment are designed to resist breakdown from sunlight, which is what protects the fabric's strength and colour over time. The 2026 ledge cushions and floating umbrella use a solution-dyed fabric rated UPF 50+.

solution-dyed, for the new pieces

The 2026 ledge cushions and floating umbrella use a 280gsm solution-dyed polyester with a TPU laminate. Solution-dyed means the pigment goes into the fibre while it's still liquid, rather than being printed or dipped onto finished cloth. The colour runs all the way through, so there's nothing on the surface to wear off.

It's the same approach used for high-end outdoor upholstery, and it's why those two products carry a UPF 50+ rating.

what we won't tell you

That it will last forever. Australian conditions are about as hard as outdoor fabric gets — extreme UV, forty-degree afternoons, chlorine, salt, then rain, wind and cold. Anything left outside in that is on a clock, ours included. A brand telling you otherwise either hasn't tested their fabric or isn't being straight with you.

We'll also tell you what we haven't tested. The Intertek reports cover colour fastness to light. They don't cover chlorine, and we're not going to imply they do.

What we can tell you is roughly where the clock is set. Grade 3 fabric visibly shifts inside a single summer, and a lot of what's sold here is Grade 3 or untested. We won't run below Grade 4, we test at both ends of the colour range through an independent lab, and we build the cover to come off so the thing can actually dry out.

Look after it and this should give you years rather than a season. Ignore it, leave it soaking wet in full sun all summer, and the sun will win eventually — as it does with everything out there. We'd rather say that now than have you work it out in February.