It's a bandana/headband full of water absorbing beads of some description. You soak it and tie it around your head or neck and it keeps you cool as the water evaporates. I wish I knew what the hell they were, I'd go into business making them, myself, since so many people have AC but can't afford to turn it on unless the temperature is in triple digits.

Another thing that does a good job is a spray bottle and a fan. You spray into the wind stream and cooled air and a little water hit your skin and cool you down fast.

Soaking your head also helps, wet hair cooling you off for a while. I used that a lot back in Boston. It doesn't work as well out here in the desert, stuff dries out too fast.

Heavy drapes that are closed in advance of the sun help to keep the house a bit cooler. Living in the dark gets depressing, but it's easier to cope with than living in a 95 degree house.

I still haven't set up the cooler here, even though temperatures have been in the low 90s. It's still comfy in the morning and until about 4 PM, only ugly from then until about 8. I suppose I'll have to do it soon, though. I use an evaporative cooler that works really well in an arid climate and adds only about $15 a month to the electric bill.

It would be so cosmically cool if you owned one of hers.
I keep them in the freezer, with extras so you can swap them out as they warm up.
I can dig up the directions if you want.

We use our cool basement air to cool the upstairs by using a hurricane fan to blow it up the stairs, and a small rotating fan at the top to boost it.

Wrapping your naked self in a wet sheet or Moo-moo helps too.

The cloth gave up the ghost years ago, so I remade it using some Japanese fabric left over from a haori jacket I'd made. It's hanging together nicely and is 100% cotton, a rarity these days.

There are no basements here, just a crawl space that gets as hot as the house does. When I lived in Dixie, we used attic fans to blow the hot air into the attic and bring cool night air in through the windows. That worked, too, and closing heavy drapes kept the place cool until evening.

All I need to know is what those beads are. Once I know what to call them, I can find a supplier. I'm thinking a sleeveless shirt using them might be really nice. Or maybe a ventilated hat.

they're 'water absorbing polymer beads' sold under various name brands, usually used in vases of flowers. The trick is to remember how big they get, don't put too many in each section.
I find they work better when the hit the base of your brain stem, on the neck they sit too low. ohhh, maybe a 'turban' style with a patch at the back of the skull, and a few on the forehead.
Get sewing!

It's starting to heat up here now, so I dug them out of storage to get them hydrated and frozen. thanks for reminding me

as the water evaporates you stay cool as a cuke. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

cool your house off. They don't work well where it's humid, but if humidity is low, I hear they work pretty well. Just google 'swamp cooler.'

high humidity as air moves in from the South. Usually, our weather comes over Lake Ontario so we have generally cool summers , with night time temps dropping into the 60's. We get along without AC because we usually only have one or two weeks of really hot weather. The real killer for me is that the hot weather usually brings high ozone with it.

kept me alive out working in the hot, hot summer we had last year.