# Cotton wool phobia **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407 "2003-03-31T08:27:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ChalkPit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/1 "2003-03-31T08:27:37Z")
I just cannot stand touching the stuff. Is it just me ? ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/2 "2003-03-31T09:25:10Z")
Technically, it’s not a true phobia if it’s a simple dislike of the stuff. If you go out of your way to avoid cotton wool to such a degree that it affects other parts of your life, such as work and relationships, then it’s more likely to be a phobia. Sorry. Pet peeve o’ mine. And I’m just fine with cotton wool. ---
**Author:** ![ChalkPit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/3 "2003-03-31T10:47:18Z")
Ok, so it aint a phobia - my bad. I’ll rephrase: is it known dislike ? ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/4 "2003-03-31T10:48:55Z")
Hey wow - someone else who cant handle cotton wool. We should start a cotton wool phobia support group. This will make you freak - imagine pulling cotton wool apart slowly with wet, pruny hands.:eek: Well its not really a phobia but it sends shivers down my spine, like scraping my teeth on a brick. btw, shouldnt this be in MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/5 "2003-03-31T13:06:43Z")
That doesn’t sound _too_ bad, but reminds me of a oddity of mine: fuzzy tennis balls. If I’ve just cut my nails and they’re not all sanded smooth, the thought of an extra fuzzy tennis ball getting caught in my nails… Gah. What antechinus sez. I’d play you a game any time, but the thought is still worthy of a shiver or two. So what’s it about the wool? The fibers? The sticking-to-you-ness? GQ answer: No, it’s not just you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ladydisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@ladydisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladydisco)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/6 "2003-03-31T13:17:49Z")
Actually, I know two people with the same cottonball aversion - my sister and my friends husband. When my friend and I were roommates (before she got married) her bf mentioned how he couldn’t stand to touch cottonballs/cotton pads etc. To be funny, we were going to glue them to all the doorknobs, but we decided against it. ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/7 "2003-03-31T13:34:27Z")
I hate hate hate touching cotton balls or rolled cotton. It’s just icky. I will only use the “cosmetic puffs” which are made of God only knows what. I have a friend who also hates touching the stuff. We call it “cotton ball syndrome.” ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/8 "2003-03-31T13:50:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ChalkPit \* > \*\*Ok, so it aint a phobia - my bad. > > I’ll rephrase: is it known dislike ? \*\* Are you surveying posters to see if others here share your revulsion of cotton wool, or are you asking if there are documented cases of people suffering from cotton wool phobias? Because those are two different queries, and one of them is better suited for the IMHO forum. Quick Googling turns up nothing of note. “Cloth phobia”, “wool phobia”, “cotton phobia” and “cotton wool phobia” turn up no useful links. So it would appear that no, a genuine fear of a type of cloth is not a very common phobia. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a clinical term for such a phobia, or that no one’s ever suffered from it. The answers are just not easily findable using a web search engine. Of course, you were talking about a tamer, less intrusive general dislike of contact with cotton wool fibers, and as the response so far has indicated, others do share this feeling. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a common dislike. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/9 "2003-03-31T14:01:53Z")
I can touch it OK, it’s the tearing of it that I can’t bear, it gives me the same sensation as chalk on a blackboard, or the squeaking of fibretip crayons as they draw. Anybody know why why this is, or a general term for these feelings. They’re not phobias, it’s not fear that I feel, it’s a sort of scrunching up of the nervous system in automatic respense. ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/10 "2003-03-31T14:15:20Z")
I don’t consider myself stupid, but perhaps ignorant of the meaning of “cotton wool”. I expect that it is something like cotton balls or cotton of that texture. Really though, does it have anything to do with wool? Please enlighten me. Duh! ---
**Author:** ![ChalkPit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/11 "2003-03-31T15:03:25Z")
I posted here as I wanted to know if it is was known ‘thing’, which perhaps has a name. If a moderator wishes to move it, that’s fine. ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/12 "2003-03-31T15:51:26Z")
I’ve got an uncle who has a cotton ball phobia. He’s got pills to take for it, if only he could get to 'em! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/13 "2003-03-31T19:59:18Z")
My brother has a severe reaction to cotton wool…as to whether he’s actually irrationally afraid of it i’m not so sure… but perhaps. He also finds that cornflour produces the same reaction - i remember standing in a supermarket que one day and handed him the packet of cornflour I was buying and he threw it down saying it was like cotton wool! ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/14 "2003-03-31T20:17:43Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t consider myself stupid, but perhaps ignorant of the meaning of “cotton wool”. No **robcaro** , you aren’t stupid, it’s a cultural thing. People from Britian (such as **ChalkPit** ) refer to all fibers as wool. In the United States (and perhaps in your country too), wool is used exclusively to refer to animal fiber (sheep, alpaca, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/15 "2003-03-31T20:28:22Z")
Thanks Encinitas. I learn something new here every day. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/16 "2003-03-31T21:13:48Z")
I am ashamed to admit that I have occasionally watched those terrible daytime talk shows. One episode I saw featured people with strange phobias. There was, indeed, someone with a morbid fear of cotton balls. They brought out a huge pile of cotton balls all mounded up on a tray and she reacted like they were poisonous scorpions. ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/17 "2003-03-31T22:54:08Z")
What **aldiboronti** said it the same with me. It is the ‘sound’ made by the pulling apart of the fibres in the cotton wool that gived you the shivers. With me I can cope with fingernails on calkboard, polystyrene on glass etc, but pulling cotton balls … aarggh. Perhaps this frequency is the same as the fingernails on chalkboard frequency. Cecil wrote a column on this. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/18 "2003-04-01T07:29:58Z")
I would say it was definitely a tactile problem, rather than a fear- cotton ‘wool’ balls are mildly unpleasant to touch, as far as I am concerned, but fine grained artificial sponge fabrics are torture to me. fear doen’t seem to be involved, it is simply the same sort of horror associated with fingernails on slate and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Johnr\_Roberts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Johnr\_Roberts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnr_Roberts)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2023, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/19 "2023-07-06T08:56:49Z")
Cotton wool balls torn apart - hell for my late auntie, no effect on me. Cheap sheer nylon curtains with a sheen - the absolute worst thing I can imagine, UNLESS I touch them with a bare foot, then I can touch them with my fingers for up to 30 minutes, lol. Resets after that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2023, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cotton-wool-phobia/165407/20 "2023-07-06T12:41:34Z")
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