For some reason I feel compelled to comment on this post from way back in 1973:
"Dear Cecil:
This is a 100 percent serious question, and I want the straight dope. Every night when I’m undressing for bed I stand in front of the mirror and wonder where belly button lint comes from. This is no joke. --John W., Washington, D.C.
Dear John:
What makes you think you have to urge me to be serious, Jojo? Your navel is one of the few places on your body where perspiration has a chance to accumulate before evaporating. Lint from your clothing, cottons especially, adheres to the wet area and remains after the moisture departs."
I also collect quite an impressive amount of lint in my belly button every day, and I was not satisfied by the explanation; it does not explain why my wife, who also has a belly button, does not accumulate lint. Presumably she also sweats in there as I’m sure we all do, but the difference is that she lacks belly hair. I prefer my explanation: the hair on a man’s belly is all oriented towards the belly button and acts as a sophisticated lint collection system that throughout the day collects and delivers lint from the far reaches of the torso and delivers it to the belly button. Once there it cannot escape because the hairs allow movement in only one direction – something like a fox-tail…
As a hairbelly (the PC term) myself, my theory has always been of the following nature:
The action of cloth rubbin over hair removes particles from the cloth.
These particles flow around the contact point between the hairs and shirt somewhat randomly
When the particles get to the belly button, they no longer have contact with the shirt, causing them to no longer move about.
Therefore: Lint collects in hairy belly buttons, regardless of sweat.
To clarify, I’ve lived in extreme weather on the dry/humid and cold/hot axis and in all cases have gotten roughly equal amounts of lint from a daily wearing of a shirt.
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 fibers 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.
Well, I’m not sure what your experiences have been, but here is one of mine.
I never gave the whole subject much thought until some time in my thirties, Until then I may have vaguely wondered if the “lint” was just that, or if it was really about bodily excretions, and not clothes at all.
I was working at a pizza place, and the boss had just splurged on brand new company t-shirts. (Don’t recall the fabric.) The first night afterward I looked and saw the same bright orange color of the shirt tucked away in Mr. Innie. That one moment left no doubt in my mind that bb lint was at least mostly just that, and most likely to come in quantity from certain kinds of fabric that were brand new and had just been worn for a full, physically active day. (I seem to recall that the orange shirt, as opposed to a red one, was given out after I could no longer deliver (lack of vehicle) but was reduced to walking a coupon route.)
Are you sure that the blue or blue-grey you report wasn’t from underwear worn over your navel, thereby shielding your whatever-colored clothes?
OK, “always” was a bit of an exaggeration, but it does seem that a normal dryer-load of clothes of various colours does usually yield blue lint. Same for belly-button lint.
If that’s true, why is my lint always the same colour as my T-shirt, not my underwear? I think this would only work for men who wear their underwear and trousers up high.
