Chafe is a materials problem, and it has a materials answer
Load, friction coefficient, sliding distance and the state of the layer. Seams, collars, fissures, lips, scalp and the blade you draw across a face that has already had a hard week.
Friction, rash and chafe as mechanical problems
Chafe is not an allergy and it is not a hygiene failure. It is material moving against skin, and it has the controls that any friction problem has.
Friction · Mechanics · 10 minSeams, collars and pressure points: finding the one that is doing it
Most recurring skin trouble in outdoor sport comes from one specific contact. Locating it is a diagnostic exercise you can actually do, unlike most of them.
Friction · Kit · 9 minChapped lips, and the physics of why lips are different
Lips lose water faster than any other exposed surface, have almost no defences of their own, and are constantly wetted and dried. The mechanism, and the one habit that keeps it going.
Friction · Lips · 9 minCracked hands: the mechanics of a fissure
A fissure is a crack through a stiff layer under tensile load. Understanding it as a materials problem explains why it hurts so much and why it takes so long.
Friction · Hands · 10 minScalp and hair under salt, wind and a hood
The scalp is the site most reliably left unrinsed and most often covered by the least ventilated piece of kit you own. Hair and scalp are separate problems with separate answers.
Friction · Scalp · 9 minShaving and grooming on skin that has already had a hard week
A blade removes surface cells along with hair. On a barrier that is already thinned by cold, wind and salt, that is a significant additional load applied deliberately.
Friction · Grooming · 9 minThis page contains no commercial links. There is no advertiser, no sponsor, no affiliate arrangement and no product placement anywhere in it. We name no brand and no product, here or anywhere else on this site, and we describe ingredient classes only by what they do. Published by Northbank Media. Our funding is set out in full on the about page.
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