new thread
Today here in Ohio it hit 100* I'm still very well growing my hair at 18 months now! I normally wear a hat but chose a durag instead. Much more comfortable and even got a few compliments at work!
For those of you who have much longer hair than I, how do you deal with it?
Let me start off by saying I hate the heat, I don't handle the heat well.
I spend much of the in an air conditioned office or in air conditioning at home. I also never wear a hat. So on really
hot days i'm usually wearing cut off shorts, often with no shirt
and my hair flowing down my back. There is a really great feeling going without a shirt and having my hair flowing down
my back even on very hot days. On windy days i'll have it
tied in a pnay tail, or braieded. But even during these very hto days when i'm covered in sweat I absolutely refuse to even consider cutting my hair. No matter how hot and humid it gets
(read: dew points in the 75 degree vicinity) I will absolutely
refuse to even think of cutting my hair.
Now one thing i'll do if it gets raelly hot and it isn't air conditioned is wet my hair wet.
Did I mention I won't consider cutting my hair when it is hot?
Even during the 1980s when my hair was much longer (knee length)
I never considered cutting it due to the head. I did end up cutting it back to waist length, but not because of the heat. Waist length was the maximum manageable length.
Hello Michael,
I much prefer the cooler weather as does my hair. However I have learnt to adapt to hot weather as best I can.
I can handle dry mediterranean-like heat ok, but the combination of both hot temperatures and humidity is hell. For many years when I had fairly short shaggy hair I would sweat a lot in summer heat. The Oils in my scalp required washing every 2 days as they had nowhere to really travel too beyond a few inches of hair.
When I grew longer hair I was surprised that having longer hair helped me cope better with the heat. My hair acted as an absorbent of sweat and oils running down my scalp and also found worked well as a natural fan keeping my head cool and reasonably protected from sunburn. When I move my hair swishes to and fro and moves as I walk and acts as a kind of fan to keep my scalp cooler. The only drawback with longer hair in hot summer weather is having to wash more often the dirt and dried sweat and using more conditioner on the ends.
To deal with very humid days I found wearing my hair in a ponytail or in a bun in a simple updo really made a difference.
A hat as opposed to a beanie for summer weather is better as it does allow the scalp to breathe better.
Sometimes splashing a bit of water onto your palms of hand and wiping them over the top of scalp works too.
Cheers, Duncan
Actually I prefer the heat over freezing cold if I'm stuck being outdoors.Of course we all can run indoors when its cold of hot outside in nice,climate controlled environments.I'm fortunate not to be a big "sweater" as I can be outdoors in extreme heat and my t-shirt is barely wet.I know people who can soak a t-shirt and even their pants when the temps are up.My hair has never been a problem on hot days even if humid.I have to chuckle when I go to my gym and see all the guys,on the first hot days of the season, with shaved heads!Nothing for nothing but I say "HELL NO" to that!I even wear a ball cap on the hottest days to protect my hair from the hot sun when at work.So in short, hot or cold my longhair stays!Cheers
Mârk
I on the other hand prefer the cooler temperatures. If it is cold
I can put on more layers. But if it's hot there is only so much
clothes you can take off.
I hate it when the dewpoint gets over 63 (a dewpoint of >63 is
uncomfortable, 70-75 is very oppressive.)
One big problem I have with freezing cold temps is that my hands go numb to the point they are in pain! I can even wear gloves and this happens.Plus my lack of body mass means I feel cold even when it's not that cold out.I'd probably make out better living in the desert! Cheers
Mârk
Well, maybe.
Temperate zone deserts cool down very quickly at night. Not unusual to have a 50-60 degreeF difference between daytime highs and nightime lows. A couple weekends ago I was in the high desert, mid 80s F during the day, and frost and frozen water on the picnic table in the morning.
My solution is to move away from places that have high humidity AND high temperatures. Hot and dry or cold and moist I can deal with, but I grew up in hot and humid and have no desire to deal with that again! If it is dry, your body can sweat and cool efficiently...wear cotton for maximum comfort. Hair is up or in a ponyscrub.
Another San Franciscan has spoken!
Yes, people often ask me if it's humid here. I say, "Yeah, the humidity is 100% in the fog and it's foggy a lot. But the fog is always cold. When it's hot here, the wind comes off the land, there is no fog, and the humidity is low."
Of course, "hot" is relative. Some people don't think of 80 degrees as hot. (And "cold" is relative. Some people elsewhere don't think of 50 degrees as cold.)
What people don't expect is the wind. It is windy here a lot. You see bandannas wrapped around hippie hair in Summer of Love pictures because guys soon grew tired of having hair smacking them in the face, not because it was a groovy fashion statement. From those beginnings it then became a groovy fashion statement, though.
There are lots of places you can eat outside, but I don't much. I prefer to eat food, not hair.
The photo above shows what the wind typically does to my beard. The one below is another example:
Bill
As I mentioned earlier I would forget about humidity and
use the dewpoint to measure the humidity.
See the above post for the comfort levels. I prefer using
a dewpoint of 75 ratehr than a "100% humidity."
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LOL my beard does that too Bill. In wind it has a mind of its own, going every which way.
Scott
As someone who lives in a cold region of the world during winter
(New York) the key to staying warm in the winter is to stay dry.
Your feet cold? Put on a fresh pair of DRY socks. Head cold?
Put on a dry hat. I don't wear hats ever but the key keeping
your head warm is to put on a dry hat.
As I said before in winter you can always add layers, in summer
you can only take of so much.
.
I wear Birkenstocks all year around... even during the winter. My feet has grown so accustomed to the cold during the winter that I don't even feel the cold down there any more :D ! Plus, if your socks get wet from the snow, they dry off twice s quickly when you get inside (being exposed to air). That's how I've done it for most of my life :p ~
Sincerely,
Eric
I'm the same way. I can walk outside mid summer in pajama pants, jeans, a tshirt, and a hoodie and I'm fine. But if it's cold, I'm cold no matter what and the first thing to get his is my hands. They get really cold and then hurt like nothing else I've felt. And being a musician and artist, when my hands are cold and hurt it freaks me the hell out.
Hi Jarvis,
Man you sound just like me!Once it gets below 60 degrees believe it or not I can feel cold.I'm amazed at people who wear shorts and a t shirt when the temps are in the 50s!My body just "feels" the cold and when the deep freeze is on my hands are literally in such pain if I'm outdoors.Not great when I have to work outdoors in the winter some days.Since I service heating and air conditioning equipment I use the heat from the flue discharge from the outdoor heaters to warm the pain from my hands.At least now I don't feel I'm weird in that respect because no one else I know ever complains about freezing hands like I do until you mentioned the same problem.Cheers my friend:)
Mârk
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Yeah I work in a warehouse, theres the dry side (room/outside temp), cooler (roughly 25-30° F), and the freezer (-15° F on a good day). I used to work in the freezer most days, but with gaining time and seniority there my leads know that I prefer dry so that's where I usually am now. That freezer is hell though. Some prefer it but I can't stand it. I've had days where after bring in there for a while I have to just walk out and stand in the bathroom for a while prettymuch unable to do anything except grunt and curse in pain because if my hands.
People like me who wear shorts all year 'round. I've even been
known to shovel snow in winter in shorts. (AFter a few minutes of
shoveling the snow i'm warm/toasty/and sweating.) My preferred temperature is in the 50s and 60s. I hate it when the temperature gets above 70 degrees.
But no matter what my hair will remain long, and often it is down, not tied up in a braid(s) or a pony tail. Other parts get hotter first. Whether i'm wearing the hair down or tied up i'm still just as hot and uncofortable. Cutting my hair would not solve that problem, so I won't even consider it.
One of the reasons I wear shorts in the winter is even though it
is cold outside you go into a store wearing anything heavier than
shorts and your're sweating because the store/office/etc. that you're in have the heat cranked up to near 80. Again I would reiterate the key to remaining warm is to remain dry.
Yep! Give me moderate temps (SF, most of the time), but at the extremes, I'll always take dry. Dry heat or dry cold. Done any number of strenuous hikes in the snow...as long as it is cold enough that it isn't wet...25F and still is comfy as long as you are working hard enough! Got to be prepared with extra clothes if you stop though!...and no sweating...have to hit that sweet spot of being warm but not overheated (often I have a pair of light gloves to go with the shorts and t-shirt)...and maybe a little umbrella if it is snowing hard!
I have a friend with Raynauds, and man, that sounds like NO FUN AT ALL!
It is important, when working out of your comfort zone, to pay attention to your body and know how it reacts when you are near your limits and what to do to keep safe.
It got to 103 here in Oklahoma City today, and last night our A/C in our house went out. Got it taken care of today, thank God. Today was the fourth day in a row that the temp here has been over 100 this year. We had close to 60 days of that last summer. My hair really isn't a factor in all of it. Doesn't bother me at all. I do tie it back more often when it's real hot, but that's about the only change I make.
Steve
I'll pretty much echo Steve's comment. I'll tie it back more often, and maybe do a segmented tail or ask my wife to braid it more often, but no real change for summer. I was wearing it down the other day and had a lady (also long-haired, but hers was worn up at the time) ask me how I stand it. I just shrugged and told her it didn't really bother me.
Frodo
It's been hot here as well with heat indexes running around 108F. Hot days I can handle it's the hot and humid ones that really tax me. My work place does not have a/c so I'm in the heat all day. I have to keep my hair restrained for safety reasons and I can honestly say that long hair up in a bun is cooler than longish hair hanging down. And as someone else has pointed out, longer hair tends to wick the oils and sweat away from my scalp better than shorter hair did. I should also mention that I have very fine hair which doesn't have a lot of volume, so my experience may not be typical.
--Dale
-Scott McKenzie
Bill,
I know this might be off topic, but I wanted to ask
what is the general job market there like now?
thanx,
Ashley
Good for I.T. workers, average for others. Rents aren't cheap, but people who really want to be here find a way.
Bill
I've got a particularly painful situation because my hair's black and thick. But if I really wanted to go out, having my hair wet really reduces temperature. Because the hair's that long, it'll trap the water in there for some time -- it's portable AC. And does the same job as sweat, except much cleaner.
Light colored sunhats are great! I'm favoring ones now that have a broad front brim, and a cloth back that is long enough to cover my neck. If I am out in the heat, vanity definitely comes second! If not a hat, most of my ponyscrubs are light colored, so I still don't have sun on black hair!
Ha!
As a long time desert dweller, temps in the low 100s look cool !!
I have been working "Field Work" (geologist) during desert summers for years....while free air temperature may be 120+, surface temperatures can be truly absurd !!
Staying in the shade when possible is vital, drink lots of water, wear loose light colored clothing (long sleeves and long pants), sunscreen, good sunglasses....
I keep my hair in a tail, covered with a bandana and topped with a hat.
When not working, we desert rats treat summer months as those of you in the North treat winter....STAY INSIDE and take a nap ! giggle.
Keep Kool All
WWT
Hi Michael,
I know during the awkward stage, I was very uncomfortable since my hair is wavy/somewhat curly... there wasn't much I could do about it :/ . Most of the time, though, I wear my hair in a ponytail and the hair on top of my head acts like a sun barrier - it heats up like super crazy! Underneath, though, not too bad - plus like other have said, hair acts like a wick for sweat, so it's a good thing ^_~ .....
Sincerely,
Eric
That would be the temperature of boiling water to me! I think in Celsius. I know some older people who still measure in Fahrenheit here in the UK but I can't really get my head round it.
Not that it matters much here; the temperature has barely reached 18° so far in our great English summer! Maybe that's why so many guys here don't worry about cutting off their long hair. ;)
I'll start to worry when the temp hits over 30° but I still wouldn't dream of getting my hair cut. I'll just grin and bear it.
Thanks for all the tips though. I'm hoping they still may come in handy if we ever do get a proper summer!
Damon
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Yes the US of A uses Fahrenheit.
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Hmmmmmmm, I seem to remember way back in grade school all the hype
about the USA converting over to the metric system. That is why our odometers
in our cars had two forms of measurement for speed on the dial and they were supposed to have road signs reflect each measurement also.Guess the idea was
to wean the population onto the metric system.Oh well I imagine the change was too much for the average American to bear!Lol.Cheers
Mârk
The metric system was a big fad in the 1980s here. Then someone did a survey, and 96% of Americans were opposed to it. Congressmen ran like dogs with their tails between their legs. The metric act was repealed. You still see occasional signs with both miles and kilometers on them, but they are old and replaced with just miles when they fall down.
Another misstep was when gas stations started selling gas in liters, and at the same time they jacked up the price, thinking no one would notice. Well, people did notice, and the metric system got associated with being ripped off.
Then there was the kilo, which was never used before except to describe illegal drugs. No American housewife would buy anything in kilos that she was going to feed to her children. The kilo became forever tainted.
Now that you can just ask Google or Siri for a conversion, there is less interest in learning the metric system than ever. When i was a kid there was talk about revising the calendar because banks had so much trouble calculating how many days were between any two dates, for calculating loan interest. When banks got computers, interest in changing the calendar disappeared.
Most devices show both systems here, but people either ignore the metric markings or they set a switch to the customary units. Banks flash both temperatures on their signs, and people ignore the centigrade numbers.
Americans hate fractions more than they dislike the metric system, so you will often see millimeters instead of fractions of an inch, and grams instead of fractions of an ounce. Other than that, you don't see metric units much.
The metric system also grates on the ear. Now close your eyes. Imagine The Who singing, "I can see for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers and kilometers and kilometers..."
Your kilometerage may vary,
Bill
Yeah, that would kill the song! :)
It's a mix here in the UK. Beer is still sold in pints and road distances are still shown in miles. I'm sure there are sensible reasons for that but I also get the feeling that one of the hidden reasons is that the Brits like to thumb their noses at the rest of Europe. :)
And yes, the metric system IS a bit soulless - rather like song lyrics that are grammatically correct. We ain't gonna be robots!
Damon
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The word "gonna" you just used. It's a good example of what I'm about to talk about. Fifty years ago we almost never saw it in writing. Now we see it often. No one at a university decided to make that change!
The metric system is the most widely used system in the world, but English is the most widely used language, and the history and culture of users of the English language strongly come into play here.
Most languages have an academy or authority that dictates what the language is to be from the top down. English arose as the street and gutter language of a country whose church, universities, and royalty isolated themselves speaking, and concerning themselves with, French and Latin. English roared up from the gutters and bit them in the ass. With this background, the users of English would hear little of "rules", and they did whatever they wanted. There has never been an "academy" to dictate English usage. English speakers would hear nothing of it. The rules of English come from the bottom up. This has become the culture of English. We have ended up with a crazy mishmash of spelling, and words that were shamelessly lifted from other languages, but that is part of what makes English so rich. Its inclusiveness also has made it a good fit for becoming a world wide language, and 75% of its users are now non-native speakers. However, native speakers, that other 25%, are given a lot of weight wherever we use this language of ours, and 57% of native speakers are in the U.S. and 16% are in the U.K. That's almost 3/4 of the influential native speakers group, and no one is going to tell them what words to use. They will use the words they want.
For now they want to mostly use the customary English units of measurement, and due to the prominence of English, these units have a prominence that far exceeds the percentage of countries that officially use them. We will thus likely see both systems in substantial use for a very long time.
Bill
A kilo is a liter of water=2.2 lbs; a thousand of those is a ton (a cubic meter of water). Do you want your pounds advoirpois? My gold is in grams. Your property is measured in roods, rods and chaines. I don't mind that I've had to be mathematically bilingual because it's helped me cope with idiocy, but do ya think that the fact that the usa is the only people to use king george's foot print is a reason to end manufacture there? SI makes tech more accessible. I still have to translate American Imperial(different than English Imperial) daily. But you are learning, a 50 mm GRAU is not expressed in 'calibres'; a 9mm Glock is not called a 38. What a strange way to learn scientific notation.
I gave up on miles/ kilos for trip distance a long time ago, I measure in hours for long trips, kliks(kilometers) for local.
The hardware that converts a computers measurements into 'american' is smaller than wrist watch.That machine stands between you and the general conversation engineering and science.
A kilo is a liter of water=2.2 lbs; a thousand of those is a ton (a cubic meter of water). Do you want your pounds advoirpois? My gold is in grams. Your property is measured in roods, rods and chaines. I don't mind that I've had to be mathematically bilingual because it's helped me cope with idiocy, but do ya think that the fact that the usa is the only people to use king george's foot print is a reason to end manufacture there? SI makes tech more accessible. I still have to translate American Imperial(different than English Imperial) daily. But you are learning, a 50 mm GRAU is not expressed in 'calibres'; a 9mm Glock is not called a 38. What a strange way to learn scientific notation.
I gave up on miles/ kilos for trip distance a long time ago, I measure in hours for long trips, kliks(kilometers) for local.
The hardware that converts a computers measurements into 'american' is smaller than wrist watch.That machine stands between you and the general conversation engineering and science.
And a thousand ounces of water fills a cube one foot on a side. That makes ounces and feet metric.
Not metric at all. The metric unit for time is the second. You should be using kiloseconds.
As for Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit is cool! Especially in July if you live in San Francisco....
Bill
Hmmmm,so looking at this picture tell me what scale do you use when driving?Looks to me the MPH one is a bit more prominent:)Cheers
Mârk
I would also point out there were alot of errors in manufacturing
items because they didn't properly convert the metric and non
metric measurements correctly.
Not only in manufacturing but in other areas as well. Remember Air Canada flight 143 that ran out of fuel at 35,000 ft (11,500 m) and had to glide to an abandoned airfield - the aircraft had filled 10,000 lbs instead of 10,000 kg (22,000 lbs) of fuel, not enough to reach its destination.
Another disaster, costly but without victims: a probe sent to Mars crashed on the surface of the planet because the teams that designed the craft and calculated its trajectory mixed the metric and the Imperial measurements.
I remember also the 40-pin chips (Intel 8080 and 8086 for example) produced in the 1970s and 1980s. They had 20 pins on each side spaced at 0.1 inches or 2.54 millimeters. Clones of these microprocessors were produced at that time in the USSR and other Eastern block countries. The pins of those chips were spaced at 2.5 mm, enough to sum up to a 0.8 mm (0.03 in) difference between them and Western-made chips. This made it difficult to insert them in sockets or printed circuit boards made with 0.1 inches spacing. I had to carefully bend the pins slightly so that I could insert the chip in its place.
--
A Linux Longhair
Or Joe South singing "Walk a Kilometer in My shoes"
Or "Adam Vinetari just kicked a 34.7472 Kilomter field goal to win the game for New England."
The bottom line is too many in the US of A refuse to use the metric system for one reason: it's used in Europe and countries
outside of the US of A.
I'm 57 years old so I remember all the stupid/crazy arguements
against adopting the metric system.
Now i'm goting to go watch as my hair grows another 1.27 cm over the next month.
***********1/2 inch = 2.54/2 = 1.27 cm
Say what you will, I just like it better!
When you talk about hair lengths, 60 (centimeters) sounds better than 24 (inches)...
--
A Linux Longhair
And 600,000,000 nanometers sounds even better!
Today's homework question: How many nanometers per second does your hair grow, if it grows half an inch every thirty days?
Scott?
Bill
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(12,700,000) / (60 x 60 x 24 x 30) = 4.89969 nanometers per second.
Scott
Whoa! Stand clear - you wouldn't want get hit by a growing hair!
Hrrmmmnnn...how many Planck-lengths per yoctosecond?
http://htwins.net/scale2/
That was an awesome chart! And the most amazing thing about it was that, at the far reaches of the universe, I found the other end of Scott's mane!
Bill
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I get. Sonuds like a lot.
Scott
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I am a bit dyslexic.
Scott
...but when the talk is about my weight I prefer kilograms instead of pounds...
--
A Linux Longhair
Tons, of course, would give you an even smaller number!
Well, you did walk right into that one. [wink]
Bill
It is nice here at my house in Richmond which is located 19.8 kilometers at a heading of 21.10 degrees (NNE) from San Francisco Civic Center. I measured it on Google Earth.
Scott
With or without hair it will still be hot, and at least with longhair you've got some protection from the sun :)
Just deal with it.
I tie my hair in a ponytail and I go shirtless...
--
A Linux Longhair
I tie it back. With long hair I am better able to deal with the heat.
contrary to popular belief that shorter hair keeps you cooler during heat, I always have found that to be opposite. When I had shorter hair, I felt much more uncomfortable when it was hot. I felt like ripping it out of my head.