Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "MyLifeOutdoors" channel.

@Joël if you are working in your front yard then your advice will work fine, and if you work up a sweat, fall in the coy pond, get caught in the rain etc, you can simply walk back inside and have your wife brew some tea while you dry out in front of the fire. But if you are out in the wilderness, or even a long walk to the stream in the woods behind your house, cotton can be deadly, because IF you don't stay dry, it stops keeping you warm. Your whole premise is "stay dry", and so you have no fault tolerance for even a little bit of wetness that will literally freeze you. So when you are out of sight of your warm house in very cold weather, lose the cotton and potentially save your life.
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@jimmcneal5292 my preferred super duper clothing is wool, which is proven to insulate when wet, which cotton is proven NOT to do. My favorite base layer is a silk/wool blend, and I don't like synthetic.
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@contumelious-8440 try something. Put on a pair of cotton jeans and go play in the snow and see how bad the Frost bite gets when they get wet. Then do the same thing with wool pants. You will notice a major difference. Do the same with cotton vs wool or synthetic base layer, socks, etc etc, and you will discover a major difference.
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@thisisnotausernameXD when they are thoroughly doused in oil or wax so that they can't absorb water, then it doesn't matter what the material is, because it's the water absorption of cotton that's the big problem. So yes you are correct, the treated canvas is a great outer layer, as long as the treatment is fresh and effective.
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@contumelious-8440 lmao! You are going to insist on a peer reviewed paper? It's well known that when cotton gets wet the water fills in all the air space, but when wool gets wet, it keeps airspace in it, and air space is what insulates. You don't need a scientific paper on this exact topic, any more than you need a scientific paper to tell you whether sand or loam will absorb more water.
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