After about 34 years of being totally cat free, I have now acquired two of the beasties. They are delightful (well, except for the 3:00 am cat fights that wake me up).
However, I have a LARGE amount of cat hair in my nose. About enough to make an entire new cat. I blow my nose all day and perverse fascination makes me look at the results. There’s a lot of cat hair there.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to me, as both of the fine fellows sleep in bed with me (And the dog, and my SO. Good thing it’s a big bed.) , but it does. I was not prepared for a cat’s worth of hair to come out of my nose every day. It’s rather unsightly, and decidedly unfeminine.
I don’t know how to combat this. The obvious solution of “Don’t have the cats sleep in the room with you.” will not work as I am unable to resist their cute kitty faces, and cute kitty mews when I try that. I suppose I could plug my nose before bed but that would a) make it hard to breathe, and b) cause me to inhale the cat hair into my mouth. I’m afraid that would alter the tastes of my favorite foods.
So, I’m putting it to you, cat owning dopers. Is there a way to prevent all this cat hair from going up my nose while I sleep, or should I just start collecting the stuff to knit myself a shawl?
The stories of my kitten huffing have been widely exaggerated. While I may shnoogie the kitties with regularity, I have never actually inserted one in my nose.
In order to properly diagnose your cat hair problem, it would help immeasurably if you were to post pictures of said cats, including, of course, their hair.
Sadly, all of the pictures of Taz are still on the SO’s camera. (BAD SO! Very BAD!)
I like the cheese cloth idea. However, Mr. Wonderland was totally unfazed when I came into the bed room with a blue, glaze-y peel off mask, so I’m not sure cheese cloth would even raise an eyebrow.
Awww, what a pretty snoogums kitty cat! If the other one is as cute, it’s no surprise you can’t resist them!
As for keeping cat hair out of your nose, you could do what Papa Tigs does: develop sleep apnea, go through a sleep study, and end up sleeping with a CPAP. Besides keeping kitty hair of his nose, it provides the added bonus of allowing him to breathe at night, too.
Personally, when I have the problem, I just ask her to trim a little neater.
You might try brushing the kitties to get some of the hair off of her. If they’re long haired kitties, then you can have them trimmed, which should help. (Unless you’re partial to blood loss, I recommend having this done by a professional.)
I never believe that advertised things work the way they’re supposed to, but our five cats were shedding so much that we had to do something. The pet shop folks recommended this, so we tried it. A little pricey ($29.99 for the cat-sized version), but…
Damn, if this thing doesn’t work! You use it on the cats and you get enough hair to make it seem like you can build yourself another cat! Bonus is that the cats like it.
That must differ from cat to cat. I tried the something much like thsi one (the Shed-ender, actually) but my cats wouldn’t let me com near them with it after one time.
I did find another milder brush (actuall, the same I use on my own hair) that they DO love, though. It doesn’t take as much hair out as the shed-ender did, but as long as the cats will allow the brushing, that’s the important thing.
These were cats that had never been brushed before, so they were wary at first, but now they jump on the table and elbow each other out of the way when I get out my hairbrush.
Ok, now THIS is an idea I can get behind!!! I just see it now “Boys! Time for bed! Come and get your suits on!” and the kitties will flee! muhwahahahaha!!!
Ahem. DianaG, the correct amount of cat hair in my nose is, of course, none. However, that no longer seems to be an option - I’m looking to cut it down to less than 1 entire cat’s worth/day though.
FWIW, I’m rather alergic to cats so the SO already brushes them every day (otherwise my lungs kinda quit working, which is a drag.) I’m not sure that they are any fluffier than they should be - perhaps sleeping with them both lying on my face causes me to injest a lot of hair…
I think I’m beginning to see what the problem is! In my admittedly limited experience, suddenly sitting bolt upright from a deep sleep while flailing madly will tend to discourage any attempts by your cats to continue this practice.
As a former cat owner who had to get rid of our cats due to bad allergies on my part, I can offer the following advice:
Use some sort of tool to help them shed their fur better (The Furminator listed above or other shedding blade of some sort would be fine)
Wear a mask when you sleep. I used to wear one of those dust masks that the hardware store sold when I slept. It worked great at keeping the cat hair and dander out!
Do a sinus rinse with a saline solution. Either a Neti Pot or one of those sinus rinse kits from NeilMed will very effectively clean out all the gunk in your nose.
