Cascade, the leading manufacturer of men’s lacrosse helmets, collaborated with Tool to design and develop a revolutionary headgear product for women. Women’s lacrosse differs from men’s lacrosse in that female players are not required to wear protective headgear, only goggles. This created a unique challenge for the designers since women’s headgear needs to be rigid enough to protect the wearer as well as flexible enough to ensure that players wearing the product do not injure those who are not, as outlined in ASTM standard F3137.

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Years of field testing with women’s and girls’ lacrosse teams revealed to Cascade that complying with the newly adopted ASTM standard would not be enough to meet the demands of these athletes. Their landmark women’s headgear needed to be comfortable, lightweight, breathable and above all, visually alluring.

The design team at Tool worked with the product developers at Cascade to create a highly functional product with a sleek and sexy aesthetic that is unique to female lacrosse. The innovative Cascade LX has a malleable outer shell that is both soft and protective, has a fully adjustable fit system, features integrated goggles, and dissipates impacts with Poron XRD. This makes it the first and only one-piece head protection solution available to female lacrosse players.