The evaporation of water has long been used to manipulate air temperature to make an otherwise hot environment more comfortable. Evaporative cooling becomes more difficult to harness practically in a personal context, particularly in scenarios where an individual needs to be mobile and not overly encumbered, such as construction and other strenuous activities.
Conventional personal cooling systems have relied on misters to reduce air temperature. However, misters can go through water quickly. To operate for a sufficient amount of time, a user would have to carry a large water supply and/or large batteries. This weight would have to be either carried by hand, which quickly becomes tiresome, or strapped on the users body, slowing the process of starting and stopping use.
Due to the proximity of blood vessels to the skin, a person's face and neck are excellent targets for cooling. Reducing the temperature of a persons face and neck creates a better cooling sensation than a similar reduction to other body parts. Despite this, many conventional cooling systems have placed water emitters around a perimeter of an umbrella or shade, which tends to be far away from a users face and neck.