Cooling clothing can sound like science fiction. ASU professor says it's available, and it works

Recently, we’ve brought you a number of conversations about the importance of shade in our Throwing Shade series. And if there’s one constant in those conversations, it’s that there’s not enough of it.

Thankfully, as cities try to find innovative ways of creating more shade, clothing companies are also getting creative.

Deborah Young is a professor of textiles science at Arizona State University, and as she recently told The Show, one of the best ways to stay cool in the summer is to choose your fabrics wisely.

Samantha Chow

Full conversation

DEBORAH YOUNG: Temperature regulating, cooling and heating is hot right now. We've got so many ways to do it. I mean, historically, we relied on particular fibers. Some fibers are cellulosic fibers, which means they come from a plant and that's like cotton and linen and bamboo and those kind of fibers.

They just naturally are absorbent and absorbency has a cooling on the body already. Taking that perspiration away from your body, makes a difference. However, they hold that moisture, they absorb the moisture and they hold that moisture.

So Gen 2 was adding wicking, and the celluloses don't do that as well. That's why the synthetics have really taken a huge role in that field today.

SAM DINGMAN: What is the difference between wicking and the absorption that those organic fabrics do?

YOUNG: Really good question. So absorbency takes a sweat off your body, but it holds it. Wicking doesn't bother to absorb. Wicking just takes the moisture from your body to the surface for evaporation, so it just gets rid of it. And that has a much better cooling effect and faster actually.

The sweat, that by itself creates a cooling effect and that cooling the skin causes you to stop sweating. So it's a really efficient system.

DINGMAN: Wow, and so these synthetic fabrics that are able to do this, what is it that enables them to do that in a way that something like linen or bamboo can't do?

YOUNG: So the big synthetic ones, of course, are poly and nylon, and they have taken over the athletic market entirely for these reasons. They are hydrophobic, which means they don't like water, they don't absorb, so it sort of bypasses that absorbency and the fabrics don't get wet, they just get rid of water and there's lots of trademarks that you can find. I'm sure you, “dry fit” by Nike or “climacool” by Adidas.

And it did start in athletic wear, but it's now in bedding. It's huge in bedding. I for one have invested in cooling bedding.

DINGMAN: Interesting. So how would this work in a bedding scenario? Is it a similar thing where the mattress wouldn't hold the sweat moisture?

YOUNG: Exactly. You don't want it under you and, and you don't want it on top of you either.

So, then we can move into, if I, if I may, let's move into the next section, which is even more exciting, innovative. And that is PCM, which stands for phase change materials. And these are literally textiles that will change their state from a liquid to a solid, which means they will regulate your temperature. When you're hot, it will cool you. When you're cool, it will warm you.

Really good in sheets if you're one of those sheet clippers at night.

DINGMAN: Yes, yes. So how, how does it do … this is making me think of back in the ‘90s, I remember all the rage was hypercolor t-shirts, which would change color …

YOUNG: Change color with temperature. They, they're coming back again, I think, hypercolor exactly. You, you touch it and body heat would leave that handprint behind, so it was very interesting, so it was thermal sensitive and that's what's happening here, too.

It's temperature regulating, it's body heat sensitive, so it absorbs, stores and releases your heat to maintain a comfortable equilibrium. My husband always says that I have a short tolerance, 3 degrees is what I want to live in, a 3-degree range. If it gets below the 3 degrees, I'm turning on the heat. If it gets higher, I want the air conditioning. He's not wrong.

DINGMAN: So is the idea behind these phase change materials that it would be sort of all-weather sort of gear, like it would be shirts you can wear, whether it's hot or cold outside, pants, jackets, maybe.

YOUNG: That's the idea. I don't know that I'd go from the desert to the snow with them. It's such an exciting field today, just body comfort, body temperature regulation.

DINGMAN: It sounds like something out of science fiction. 

YOUNG: It does, but the things that I'm talking about are not still on some drawing board someplace. They are available. Go to a sporting goods store anytime and instead of a hang tag on a, on a garment, there's a book with all of the benefits you'll get from this, whether it's antibacterial or cool to the touch or temperature regulating, anti, you know, there's so many good things on them today.

DINGMAN: So these, these phase change materials, is this technology that makes these garments kind of expensive right now, or, or could we find them, you know, on the rack at Target, say?

YOUNG: I think they're everywhere, but people don't understand what PCM means. It's just one of the things they add. It's like a cooling gel pillow.

There is one more that I wanted to address, and that's, HeiQ H-e–i-Q. It's very interesting because it, it combines two technologies, and that is cool to the touch, which will literally lower your body temperature just because of the touch that you're in. It's like being in a cold room will lower your body temperature, and it has a PCM in it. HeiQ is not as common, but it is available.

DINGMAN: What issues would you say designers or clothing companies face in selling people on these things? We have seen so much when it comes to food, about anxiety, about artificial sweeteners, dyes, that kind of thing, a lot of that motivated by the so-called MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, movement.

Has any of that translated over into garments?

YOUNG: It really is, there's a lot of interest going into it. I, I tell students all the time, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we eat. Is it organic? But we don't pay as much attention to what we put on our body, which is covering the biggest organ of our body, and there's anecdotal evidence of some of those chemicals that we're using on natural or synthetic fibers, what we are absorbing in the skin.

We don't know enough about it, but the research is certainly starting. It's an important consideration.

DINGMAN: Based on what you know about all this, I mean, do you feel like there is any reason to hesitate about adopting some of these garments made out of, you know, wicking materials, phase changing materials or is it worth whatever the risk may be to be a little bit more comfortable, especially, you know, here in Arizona.

YOUNG: Wicking and most of these technologies we talked about is mechanical. It's not chemical There is absolutely no risk for these. I don't doubt that there are some finishes somewhere that will make a difference, but wicking technology is not one of them. It's perfectly safe.