If sweating cools you down when you’re hot by evaporating, then why do we have moisture wicking clothing to remove the sweat?

Question

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

Answer 1

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.