Major sporting events, some industrial processes and military operations are often held in hot or humid environmental conditions. Cooling techniques have been used to reduce the risk of heat illness following and between work bouts in the heat, this study compared the efficacy of some of these techniques. Following ethical approval a repeated measures counter-balanced experimental design was used to compare six cooling techniques: hand immersion (HI); whole body fanning (WBF); air cooled garment (ACG); liquid cooled garment (LCG); phase change garment (PCG); a natural cooling control condition (CON). The effectiveness of the cooling conditions were examined over two periods, one between and the other following, two self-paced exercise bouts in 31°C, 70%RH air. It was hypothesised that all cooling techniques would lower body temperature post-exercise in comparison with CON, with HI being the most effective. Nine males (age 22 [3] years; height 1.77 [0.04]m; mass 69.77 [7.14]kg) exercised on a treadmill at a maximal sustainable intensity until rectal temperature (Tre) reached 38.5°C following which they underwent a 15 minute cooling period. They then recommenced exercise until Tre again reached 38.5°C and subsequently undertook a further 30 minute post exercise cooling period with (0-15 min), and without face fanning (15-30 minutes); face fanning was used to assess any benefit to thermal comfort. Heart rate (HR), thermal comfort, body mass, Tre, skin and mean skin temperature (bicep, chest, thigh and calf; Ramanathan, 1964) were measured. Mean body temperature was calculated (Tb; Colin et al., 1971). Based on ΔTb relative to CON, WBF was most effective in extracting (-) heat from the body (P = 0.003; WBF: -137Watts (W); PCG: -129W; HI: -64W; ACG: -46W; LCG: +38W) as a consequence of evaporating more sweat (P = 0.008; WBF (90.40 [0.30]%); LCG (84.00 [0.40]%); HI (83.00 [0.20]%); PCG (82.80 [0.20]%), CON (73.90 [0.40]%), ACG (69.80 [0.20]%). There were no consistent significant perceptual differences as a consequence of utilising face fanning (P>0.05). The hypothesis was not supported. It is concluded that those techniques (WBF, HI) that utilise physiological responses (sweating, vasodilatation) to augment cooling are likely to be more effective during short periods of cooling than techniques that attempt to override these response (LCG, PCG) and establish a conductive cooling pathway; this takes time.