When you first step out of the shower, you feel cold. But as soon as you are dry you feel warmer, even though the room temperature does not change. Why?

Two sensations, cold and warm, are given for two cases one is when we get out of the shower, and another is when we are dry.

When we step out of the shower, our skin is wet, which means it has a layer of water on it that is available for interaction with the atmosphere, and when we are dry means, we have removed that water from the skin. There is no interaction between the water layer that was before and the atmosphere. Now our skin will interact with the atmosphere as it is in contact with it.

The main reason is evaporation. When we step out of the shower, the water layer available on the skin starts to evaporate. For this change, it will turn from liquid form to gas. For this transformation, it needs heat energy. Water takes heat from the body and surrounding and increase its temperature and change into vapor form. The change in temperature of the skin makes it cooler. Thus we feel cold. The surrounding is a source, so its temperature doesn’t change.

When we get dry, there is no water layer that will cool down the skin temperature, and now the skin will feel room temperature which is higher than the previous temperature of skin when evaporation took place.

Thus, when you first step out of the shower, you will feel cold. But the moment you are dry you feel warmer, even though the room temperature is the same. It happens due to the evaporation of the water layer present on the surface of your skin.