Please note: sale to France is prohibited.

Matt and metallic at once is an unusual combination and a difficult one to produce, because the two effects work against each other. On the Neotec 3 it produces a deep blue that reads almost as charcoal under cloud and opens into a proper colour the moment direct light reaches it.

Five stars from SHARP — and the number behind them

What a SHARP rating cannot tell you is the part worth saying out loud: it says nothing about fit. A five-star helmet that is the wrong shape for your head will move under braking and may not be in the right place when it lands, and no laboratory result changes that. Shoei's intermediate-oval shape suits many heads and not all of them.

With that caveat stated, the measured result is the best available: five out of five stars, February 2024.

About the Matt Blue Metallic finish

The technical tension is worth explaining because it is what you are paying for. A metallic finish depends on light reflecting off aluminium flake and returning through a clear layer; a matt finish deliberately scatters that same light at the surface. Put them together carelessly and the result is chalky and dead — which is why matt metallics are rare and why cheap ones look like primer. Done properly, the flake still catches direct sun while the surface stays diffuse, so the helmet changes far more between weather conditions than either a flat matt or a gloss metallic would. In daily use it behaves like the other matt finishes — forgiving of scuffs, unforgiving of baked-on insects — with the bonus that a mid-dark blue sits closer in tone to road film than black does.

P and J, and what ECE 22.06 actually tests

ECE gives a pass mark; it does not rank. Every helmet legally on sale in Europe has cleared 22.06, and the label alone will not tell you which cleared it by a margin. That is the gap SHARP fills, and it is why this page quotes both.

On the homologation itself: P/J, meaning the Neotec 3 was submitted and tested in both the closed and open configurations and passed in each.

AIM, three shells, and the steel that holds the chin bar

The break points are worth knowing before you order: XS, S and M share the smallest shell, L has its own, and XL and XXL share the largest. If you sit at the top of a group the helmet will feel closest to its intended fit, because that size is the one the shell was drawn around.

All three are AIM laminate over multi-density EPS, and all three carry the same stainless steel chin-bar mechanism.

CNS-3C and QSV-2 — and the Neotec II trap

Three pieces of glass, effectively, and all supplied. The CNS-3C outer screen, quick-change and tool-free. The QSV-2 internal sun visor, stepless and reaching below the eyeline. And the Pinlock EVO DKS301 anti-fog lens, in the box rather than sold separately as it is on many helmets at half this price.

🔵 Order replacements as CNS-3C. The CNS-3 from the previous generation will not fit.

Quiet by design, and what that costs in airflow

Ear pads are removable on this helmet, and that is an acoustic decision rather than a comfort one. Cheek pads extended towards the back of the head, combined with those ear pads, close the path by which turbulence from below the shell reaches your ears — the route that most helmet noise actually takes.

🔵 Take them out and the helmet gets cooler and louder. That choice is yours to make.

Noise Isolator, glasses, and talking to the helmet

The micro-ratchet chin strap is worth a line. A ratchet takes about a second to close correctly and returns to the same tension every ride once set — which sounds like convenience and is really safety, because the commonest strap error is not a broken buckle but one done up loosely on the mornings you are late.

The strap cover, like the rest of the interior, is removable and washable.

Where it sits in Shoei's range

Worth naming the trade against the GT-Air3 precisely, since it is the decision most people are weighing. The full-face is lighter, marginally quieter by most accounts, and cheaper. The modular lets you eat, drink, talk, refuel and clear a border post without taking the helmet off.

Neither is the better helmet. They are answers to different questions, seventy euros apart.

1750 grams, and the rest of the honest list

What you do not get, listed against what you do. No maximum-airflow ventilation — that was traded for acoustics. No lightweight shell — 1750 g is the cost of the format. No sustained open-face riding — above about 30 km/h the raised bar drags.

What you do get: five SHARP stars, dual P/J homologation, a 93 % chin-bar lock rate, three shell sizes and a stepless sun visor that actually covers the eyeline.

When something wears out

🔵 The one part order that goes wrong most often on this model is the visor, so it is worth repeating: the Neotec 3 takes the CNS-3C. The Neotec II took the CNS-3. The two look alike, sit next to each other in catalogues, and are not interchangeable.

The matching anti-fog lens is the Pinlock EVO DKS301, also specific to the CNS-3C.

In the box

• Shoei Neotec 3 helmet — Matt Blue Metallic
• Pinlock® EVO DKS301 anti-fog lens
• Helmet bag
• Instruction manual and ECE approval documentation

Size guide

Specification

• Model — Shoei Neotec 3
• Part number — 12.07.029.2
• Colour — Matt Blue Metallic — Matt blue metallic
• Homologation — ECE 22.06, dual P/J (protective and jet)
• Safety rating — SHARP 5 of 5 stars (tested February 2024, ECE 22.06); chin bar fully locked in 93 % of impacts
• Helmet type — Flip-up / modular
• Shell — AIM (Advanced Integrated Matrix) — fibreglass and organic fibres in resin; three shell sizes (XS–M / L / XL–XXL)
• Weight — 1750 g (size M)
• Sizes — XS to XXL (six sizes)
• Visor — CNS-3C, tool-free quick-change, central lock, gap-width detent, angled upper edge
• Anti-fog — Pinlock® EVO DKS301 supplied
• Sun visor — QSV-2, integrated, stepless, covers below the eyeline; optional yellow contrast version
• Impact liner — multi-density EPS assembled from elements of differing absorption
• Retention — micro-ratchet chin strap; stainless steel chin bar locking mechanism
• Ventilation — intakes into the airstream, branched internal network, removable insect filter in the lower front vent
• Interior — 3D centre pad, Noise Isolator cheek pads, removable ear pads, chin strap cover — removable and washable, several thicknesses
• Head shape — intermediate oval
• Communication — SHOEI COMLINK with pre-routed cabling and EPS recesses for the SENA SRL3 Mesh system
• Serviceability — visor, sun visor, all pads and the Pinlock lens available as separate parts

• 1x helmet
• 1x clear CNS-3C visor (pre-fitted)
• 1x Pinlock EVO anti-fog lens
• 1x set of spare pins
• 1x maintenance tool
• 1x breath guard