Quote: (Originally Posted by
Johnny Christensen)
as they work by reflecting the bodyheat back to you
Johnny, what works for you, works for you.
But 'reflecting body heat' means heat transfer by radiation, and when working with low temperatures (like your body) this is about the most useless way to transfer heat, especially if you would wear something between your body and the reflecting media*.
steven
*energy radiated is proportional to the fourth power of surface temperature and the intensity is inversely proportional to the distance squared, so in order to 'reflect' the maximum heat back, you would want to have the reflecting layer as close as possible to your skin. The fact that you are warmer with a base layer just proves that limiting heat loss by limiting convection and conduction is much more efficient than reflecting radiated heat back.