[at-l] Fwd: Silk versus cotton?

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Weary wrote:
>You are missing the massive amount of hype that makers of silk and 
>synthetic fabrics have foisted on the idea of wearing cotton.
>
>I've told folks on this site and others that I wear at least some cotton 12 
>months a year and have been bombarded with complaints that I'm 
>irresponsible because "cotton kills."
>
>Cotton, like any fabric has pluses and minuses. Cotton blue jeans in late 
>fall, winter and early spring definitely kill from time to time. A cotton 
>tee shirt, worn summer or winter, with adequate outer wear is a perfectly 
>adequate fabric and better than many hyped alternatives -- especially, 
>including silk.



Weary -
I'm not likely to defend silk - I tried it and didn't like it.  But to a 
large degree I'll disagree with the rest of your premise here.

In Kahley's case, she was testing the fabrics "in the water" - and the 
cotton did what it does so well - it absorbed the water and held it close to 
her body. In water, the cotton will still transfer the body heat, but the 
trapped water in the cotton will be warmer than the surrounding water temp.  
Silk doesn't hold as much water, and therefore doesn't provide as much of a 
boundary layer as cotton (in the WATER).

Cotton does exactly the same thing in air -- it traps the water and holds 
it.  And that's precisely what you don't want to happen in cold weather 
unless you're into hypothermia as a lifestyle.

Fact is that the heat transfer coefficient of wet cotton is at least 10 
times that of todays synthetics (when wet).  And that was for the older 
versions  of polypro.  The newer fabrics are even better.  And that's not 
"hype' as you put it - it's a comparison of the engineering thermal 
properties of the fabrics.  If you're gonna complain about "hype" then you 
first need to be sure that the "hype" isn't true.

That factor of 10 means that a wet cotton T-shirt will transfer 10 times as 
much heat as a wet polypro T-shirt.  In air, in cold, wet conditions, that 
means a greater probability of hypothermia.

As I recall you said you don't sweat - if cotton works for you, then go for 
it.  But be advised that if you really don't sweat, you should be consulting 
a doctor because that's a serious medical condition that I can't, at the 
moment, remember the name for.  The rest of us sweat when we're on the 
Trail.  Some more than others - but we ALL sweat - and therefore need 
clothing that'll handle the moisture.  If you're telling people on this list 
that cotton is good for anything but summer use then you are most certainly 
being irresponsible.  And I can tell you from personal experience that 
CoolMax does a whole lot better job than cotton for summer hiking as well.  
Been there, done that - both ways.

I have friends who pull bodies out of the Adirondaks, the Cascades and the 
Rockies every year - and the largest factor by far for the need for those 
services is that there are still those who think cotton is  acceptable for 
cold weather use.

Long ago and far away I ran a SAR crew - and we used either cotton or wool 
itchy-scratchies because it was what was available at the time.  But over 
the last 40+ years, the technology has advanced - and some of us understand 
that the newer "hi-tech" stuff is better because it increases the margin of 
safety.  How did you miss that lesson?

Walk softly,
Jim


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