The “air-conditioning” technology behind Real X Gear’s Cooling Caps and Visors is as basic as this: Wet it, wear it and let good-old evaporation do the cooling. The trick is in extending the cooling evaporation time as long as possible. The headband area of Real X Gear’s head wear is lined with a strip of highly absorbent and water-retaining nonwoven spongy fabric called Poly-Vinyl Alcohol. Embedded alcohol beads chemically react with water to lower the temperature of the material and slow down the drying process. The idea is to keep the temperature-sensitive pressure points along your forehead and back of the head cool longer. The rest of the cap/visor is made of quick-drying fabric, so you don’t have water dripping all over your hair and face. This all sounds way too low-tech to be any more effective than dunking any old hat, but a test run on a recent hot summer day showed Real X Gear’s caps and visors do indeed stay cooler substantially longer than standard headwear. Keep an extra “wet” cap or visor in a cooler (perhaps along with picnic food) to switch off when your headwear runs out of cool. The caps and visors come in blue, black, white, camouflage, khaki, red and pink.
Real X Gear Cooling Caps or Cooling Visors are $20 at .
— Judi Dash, Gear & Gadgets syndicate
