Air-conditioning in cars and homes keeps us comfy in the summer, but when we step into the excellent outdoors, it’s much harder to overcome the warmth. Columbia, which gave us electric jackets and boots to maintain us toasty warm in winter, aims to maintain us cool in the course of the dog days of summer with its new line of Omni-Freeze Ice clothing. The fabric that makes the magic happen is product of flat fibers that bring 35 percent more surface area in touch along with your skin than traditional round yarns — and the more cloth touching your dermis, the higher it is able to absorb and dissipate body heat. These flat fibers are bonded with a unique compound that turns on when wet (by water or sweat) and lowers the temperature of both the garment and the man wearing it. In truth, when you stir in enough of the stuff, you can still freeze a pitcher of water. As the effect comes courtesy of chemical added to the clothing, it won’t last forever — however the company told us it’ll keep its cooling properties for fifty – 70 trips during the washer. Want it now? Too bad, since the Omni-Freeze Ice line of drugs won’t be released worldwide until 2012.
We got to take a look at on a sleeve of the stuff ourselves, and may say that Columbia’s cool new threads really work. Once the fabric was sprayed with some water and we started walking around, our arm was chilled quite pleasantly, just like an Altoid to your skin. Needless to say, the cooling effect only lasts so long as it’s wet, and the temperature drop varies depending upon humidity levels and airflow over the moistened area — when waving our arm with the sleeve on, it got quite a lot colder than once we were standing still. Do not believe us? See Columbia’s secret sauce in action after the break.
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