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So, notwithstanding the cold snap that we had a week/two before, how do you manage to deal with wet hair? I have heard from upperclassmen girls that your hair will freeze up if you go outside when it's wet.
Also, if you have any advice for managing long hair during the winter (I'm a transplant to the Northeast US from the sun belt), I'd appreciate it =)
Thanks,
Matt
Just treat it normally, it certainly does not freeze.
On what planet do you live on that it won't freeze?
I'm 59 years old, have lived through a lot of winters in
a number of states and yes if your hair gets wet it will freeze.
Hair gets wet from water and water below freezing will freeze.
You notice that when you come in from the cold and have to
remove large chunks of ice and snow from your hair. And if you're out there long enough that snow and ice will freeze.
On really cold days, if I'm outdoors for extended periods of time, I'll actually develope icicles in my mustache! lol.Yea if you breath through your nose,or if its runs some, that moisture will freeze in your mustache if the hairs are long enough to hold ice.Have to admit its a weird feeling having ice there but my head hair is always covered so I avoid that getting iced up :) Cheers
Mârk
My mustache has been encased in ice lots of times in winter.
Comes with the territory when you live in winter climates.
And not all that moisture comes from the nose..........some of
it comes from the snow falling and blowing around on strong winds.
Not to mention beard freeze after running the snow blower around several blocks at the job!
'Tis the season!
I agree a hundred percent with Mark, here. Having lived in Chicago for four winters, I learned that if it is cold enough to freeze your hair, you will have it buried under a wool cap, a scarf, or your coat, so due to your body heat it won't freeze. Your beard and mustache, though are a different matter.
The crucial temperature, and I've had several bearded guys agree on the number, is fifteen above (nine below, for the celsius crowd). At that temperature, your nearby body heat is no longer able to keep that hair above freezing. Even if it is not raining, snowing, etc., the moisture from your breath will condense on the hairs near your nose and mouth, and it will freeze. This creates very thick and inflexible mustache hairs. The urge is to lick them, which melts the ice and restores the hairs' flexibility, but only for a few seconds, because the added moisture from your tongue just adds to the moisture already there, and it all freezes.
You end up with globs of frost around your mouth, and it looks like you've just buried your lower face in a vanilla frosted cake. This will remain no matter what you do while outside, but within a minute of coming indoors, it will all melt away.
Far more impressive is what happens if you are out in heavy fog. Hundreds if not thousands of small water droplets will condense on your beard. I used to jog over to the west side of the city which can be very foggy, and then I'd take the subway back home under the mountain. In those few minutes, the droplets would not have had time to evaporate. I'd emerge from the subway into bright sunlight, with my beard a zillion sparkles. It was awesome!
Bill
But then I never wear a hat (or hood) unless it is snowing heavily so then it will freeze.
Im that case it will freeze.
Living here in upstate New York i'm now an expert on winter.
I'm now 59 years old so i've endured alot of winters over the
years. And yes winters do get very cold, very snowy, very
icy, and very windy.
Yeah if you go outside with wet hair it will freeze up. Also
if you go out with dry hair and it's snowing your hair will also freeze up.
It it is storming out (strong winds, snowing, raining) i'll
tie my hair in a pony tail, braid it, bun it, pr pig tail it
and wear a hood. The main thing you want to avoid is the damage from the wind (tangles).
Other than that I really don't do anything different in the winter.
I have had my hair freeze many times, but it's never caused any problems. I don't do anything differently.
You would think that frozen hair would break if the ice around it cracked, but that has never been the case for me. The ice cracks and breaks, but the hair remains pliable and remains intact. It may be different from person to person, so only experience will answer all your questions.
This makes sense. Humans are not the only animals with hair, and many of the others spend their lives outdoors in not only freezing but also sub-zero temperatures.
Bill
Believe it or not, the colder it gets, the less of a concern this is. I went to college in the Midwest and experienced temperatures as low as -25 °F. The only time I ever got "icicles" on my hair is when I ran off to class in subzero weather just after taking a shower. When I got to class, the icicles would promptly melt and then evaporate in no time.
It actually disappears more quickly in colder weather. The reason is because the maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold (the saturation vapor pressure) varies exponentially with temperature. At -30 °F, the air can hold only ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH the amount of water vapor that it can at 77 °F. The indoor relative humidity in Minnesota could be as low as ONE PERCENT during winter! (In actuality it's higher due to the presence of humans, bathrooms and ice/snow brought in from outside.
Hi Matt,
I live in mild-winter California now; but I grew up in Northern Illinois, in a suburb of Chicago that was less than a half-hour from the Wisconsin state border -- so i remember very clearly those sub-zero cold winter months!
When I was away at a boarding school in Elgin, IL when I was a 5th & 6th grader, the school had an indoor swimming pool very near to my dormitory. During the winter months, I remember running with wet hair from the pool locker room to my dorm several feet away with the other kids from swimming class, arriving breathless and with frozen hair. One of the other kids said one day, "Watch! You can break off your hair!" and then he snapped off a small lock...
Our hair was pretty short back then, and I chose NOT to try to break off any of my own hair (hell, I wanted as much hair as could be allowed for me to grow!); but I do remember what idiots us kids were for running out in that cold weather dripping wet, even if the distance to the dorm was only less than a block away.
The moral of the story:
DON'T go outside in sub-zero weather with wet hair!!! (LOL)
- Ken in San Francisco