Say you’re out running and are wearing athletic clothing that wicks sweat how does that work? I thought that sweat cools you by evaporating off your skin, if your clothing pulls the sweat off of you isn’t that defeating the purpose?
In: Biology
Moisture evaporating from your clothes still cools you (it cools the fabric, which in turn cools your body). It doesn’t have to evaporate directly from your skin. Without the moisture-wicking action, more sweat would just accumulate on your skin beneath the fabric, and not evaporate at all. So transporting sweat away from this “moisture-trap” and towards place where it *can* evaporate will cool you down faster.
Because cooling via sweating only works when your skin and the sweat has direct contact with the atmosphere. The point of sweat wicking fabric is that it transports the sweat to an upper layer which will then be exposed to the atmosphere where it will evaporate. This will then cool the fabric and the skin below it.
It does the same thing as evaporation, removes the heated liquid from your skin. It’s not the evaporation that cools you down it’s the liquid taking heat energy from your skin and going away. In this case the heated liquid is trapped in an insulating fabric rather than evaporating.
It’s the sweat getting carried off your body by evaporating that lowers your average temperature therefore cooling you down.
Is there really any difference if the sweat is carried off your body by your clothing before it evaporates?
In addition to the other answers, moisture wicking fabric helps spread the sweat out over a larger area instead. More area means faster evaporation. Think of when you’ve worn heavy cotton shirts and gotten sweat patches on your back, and how that doesn’t happen nearly as much with moisture wicking fabrics.
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