Where does Belly button lint come from?

[gaz_biz]

Cecil: 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.

How does do much lint come to be concentrated in the one place? Wouldn’t a very sweaty man have all-over-body-lint? Hows this:

A study was conducted in Australia, wherein a man who frequently pulls belly button lint from his belly button shaved the hairs from aroung his belly in a 10cm radius from the belly button, and did not suffer this terrible affliction again for a week or so. The small hairs on your stomach channel the lint into your belly button through the static electricity that is playing around them. What I want to know, is why is belly button lint ALWAYS blue?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Erm…welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board (I think). I’m assuming this is in reference to the column Where does belly button lint come from?

The study, conducted by Sydney University physicist Karl Kruszelnicki.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2001/12/10/FFX14BZOZUC.html

…His survey was not conclusive, but its findings included the fact that hairy overweight men produce more belly button fluff than slim, hairless women. This suggests that belly hairs, working like little arms on a conveyor, move fibres of fabric broken away from clothing up the curve of the belly and into the navel.

< snip >

The study took about a year. More than 5000 people, mostly in Australia but some as far afield as Texas, took part, shaving their upper and lower bellies to order, regrowing the hair and reporting on what happened in their navels over several months. More than 3500 sent in pieces of belly-button lint.

No word on why it’s blue.

[Desmostylus]

Here’s a link to Dr. Karl’s report: The Bellybutton Lint Survey Results

What colour is your bellybutton lint and is it related to your clothing colour?

• About 37% of people with BBL said that the colour of their BBL was related to the colour of their clothing. About half of these people had blue BBL. Most people wear various shades of blue. But we really can’t explain why some people consistently have BBL in a colour that is not present in their clothing.

[Irishman]

Have you ever looked at the lint in your dryer trap? Except for doing a load of all whites, the lint almost always looks some shade of blue.

[John_W.Kennedy]

Our lint is pink.

[Irishman]

You must wash a lot of reds.

[John_W.Kennedy]

Not really. That which isn’t white is predominantly my brown socks.