ELi5 how does your bellybutton and pockets acquire so much lint?
In: 4
And why is mine always blue? My blue jeans?
The microbes of your skin responsible for keeping it healthy “sweep” bacteria, oil and dead skin cells down there, and of course dust and microfiber (“lint”) from your clothing. As for your pockets, friction from movement between body and clothing against what you keep in them tears off small particles of paper, fabric, et cetera.
It’s the low point. The fuzz from your shirt moves around until it falls into the hole and can’t get out. Like water dripping downhill.
Your belly button and pockets get lint when the clothes that you wear rub together. The clothes create small pieces of fabric called lint, which can get stuck in the pockets or bellybutton. This happens over time as you wear the clothes.
The hairs on the skin around the belly button tend to point towards the belly button. This makes travel of “lint” easier towards (and inside) the belly button than away from the belly button. Once the lint is inside your bellybutton it gets trapped by those directional hairs.
Certain fabrics (notably flannel and fleece) are “lint givers” meaning that they normally give off noticeable quantities of broken fabric fibers.
If you’re getting lint in your pockets during laundering, you may be mixing lint givers with “lint takers” (polyester, nylon, corduroy) in the wash. Separate them.
Your bellybutton and pockets acquire lint because of the way that your clothes are made. Clothes are made of fabric, which is made up of tiny fibers. These fibers can easily come loose and get stuck on things like your bellybutton and pockets. When you move around, these loose fibers can rub against each other and create little balls of fluff, which is what we call lint. Over time, these balls of lint can build up in your bellybutton and pockets, which is why they often have a lot of lint in them.
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