The next time I set off to broil, the first thing I’ll pack is a personal fan called the Handy Cooler. The device, which sells for about $49.95 and is about the size of a 1980s-era mobile phone, works like most other hand-held battery-powered fans: you turn it on and aim it at your face.

Image The Handy Cooler hand-held fan ($49.95) moves air through a wet filter, an innovation that boosts it above the competition.

But the Handy Cooler has an ingenious innovation that distinguishes it from its competitors. Tucked behind the fan’s blades is a spongelike “cooling filter” that you’re supposed to douse with cold water. Turn on the fan, and air passes through the wet filter, reducing the surrounding temperature by several degrees, creating an oasis of cool air that you can take anywhere.

The EnduraCool instant cooling towel, made by Mission Athletecare, works in a similar way. After you drench the thin towel under a faucet (or, less gracefully, get it wet by soaking it with your sweat), you’re supposed to snap it several times in the air. This action is said to activate the towel’s cooling mechanism, though I can’t tell you how well it works compared to alternative methods.

Sure, when I wrapped the wet towel around my neck, it did make me cool, but I suspect I would have gotten the same result by just hanging an ordinary damp rag in its place. And the EnduraCool sells for about $15, which is more than you’ll pay for an average hand towel.

I had more success with Omni-Freeze Zero, a new apparel line by Columbia Sportswear that will be available in 2013. Columbia is best known for its winter fashion, but the company recently employed a team of researchers to wrestle with the paradoxical challenge of designing clothes that make you cool.

“For thousands of years we’ve focused on the opposite problem,” said Michael Blackford (known as Woody), Columbia’s vice president for global innovation.