I Got a Belly Full of You and That Blue-Grey Stuff
Navel lint (or more commonly belly button fluff) is an accumulation of fluffy fibres in one’s navel. Many people find that, at the beginning and end of the day, a small lump of fluff has appeared in the navel cavity.
The reasons for this have been the subject of idle speculation for many years but in 2001, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki of the University of Sydney, Australia undertook a systematic survey to determine the ins and outs of navel lint. His primary findings were as follows:
• Navel lint consists primarily of stray fibres from one’s clothing, mixed with some dead skin cells and strands of body hair.
• Contrary to expectations, navel lint appears to migrate upwards from underwear rather than downwards from shirts or tops. The migration process is the result of the frictional drag of body hair on underwear, which drags stray fibres up into the navel.
• Women experience less navel lint because of their finer and shorter body hairs. Conversely, older men experience it more because of their coarser and more numerous hairs.
• The existence of navel lint is entirely harmless, and requires no corrective action. { Wikipedia | Continue reading }
Why is it always blue?
It has been observed that belly-button fluff tends to be of a blueish tint. Sometimes it looks a little grey, sometimes purple, but generally it’s a pale blue colour. Most clothing has elements of blue or white. The dyes in black clothing, for example, are often not actually black but a very dark blue. If you have a clothes dryer, have a look at the lint filter — that tends to be blue too.
{ BBC | Continue reading }
Graham Barker is in the Guinness Book of Records as the record holder for collecting navel lint. Contrary to the research of Dr. Kruszelnicki, his lint is in a particular shade of red, even though he rarely wears red clothes.
I’ve been collecting navel fluff (just my own) since 1984, and upon learning of this, people usually ask “Why?”. To this I answer “Why not?” As you can see, when judged by the standards applied to other collections, my navel fluff collection is of great worth, even priceless. { Graham’s Paddock | Continue reading }
photos { Belly-button.com }
