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Hey all,
I take my showers in the morning before going to work, and lately it's been so cold that if the hair isn't competely dry prior to heading outside, it freezes while I'm out scraping the windows on the car prior to driving to work.
Is hair freezing for a few minutes damaging to it? Anything to really worry about?
Not sure about this one. At first thought I'd have said no, as long as you don't mess with it much while it's frozen (as I would think that being frozen would make it brittle). However, I know that when freezing tissue one of the problems is that the formation of ice crystals can rupture cell membranes, damaging the cell structure, so I suppose there could be some long-term damage.
My suggestion would be to use a knit cap or ski-mask or a hooded coat to cover your head, and tuck any further length under your coat in order to prevent any freezing, or simply make sure it's dry before going out.
Any of our more scientifically-minded members want to chime in on this one?
You could be right for the same reason that straightening wet hair with a straightening iron can cause damage. That causes the water in the hair shaft to boil and damage the hair, but freezing would be the opposite, so I am not sure either. My hair froze once while wet a few years ago when I was in West Virginia during the winter. I never noticed damage, but It was a one time event as well.
MB
No!
Frozen Mastodons come through just fine....you should be OK !!
You could move to Florida. It is a tropical paradise down here.
When I lived in Chicago, my mustache would often freeze. Fog from my nose would condense into ice on my mustache, and this would make me want to lick it off, and the water from my tongue would then freeze, too, making the problem worse. I can say my mustache never broke and fell off because of this! However, it felt very stiff and its hairs clumped together, making it feel like it was caked in dry mud.
The magic temperature at which this happens, by the way, is fifteen above. (In Celsius, nine below.)
Bill
I was in Berlin a few days ago and my 'stache did freeze, nice experience and no damage!
Hi Mr. North,
I attended a boarding school in Elgin, IL when I was a fifth and sixth grader, our dorm being not too far away from the school's indoor swimming pool. Kids being stupid as kids tend to be, we used to run half-naked from the swimming pool locker room back to our dorm with our hair still soaking wet, even during the sub-zero weather of the winter months. I remember one time one of the other kids said, "Look! I can break my hair off -- it's frozen!" And indeed he did snap a piece of hair off his head. Fascinated, the rest of us stupid kids tried the same trick, too (including yours truly)...
Once was enough, though. My hair as a kid was short enough as it was, so I eventually realized that there was nothing "fun" about making it any shorter!
- Ken (now in San Francisco)