The fair man is home plate to 1.8 mg of abdomen button fluff at any one time , and it ’s almost always gamy . What is this mysterious substance , and why does it tuck there ?
Inspired by literal navel gazing , Dr Georg Steinhauser spend three eld of his life-time examining abdomen clitoris fluff , cataloging 503 case-by-case examples of the phenomenon , and postulate his ally and family about the content of their navels . In addition to being banned from further dinner party party , he discover that a previously unknown type of hair was the perpetrator . This exceptional whisker is not only remarkably ok , but has flyspeck fiddling barb on it that rub on wearing apparel and knock small amounts of cotton off . Their arrangement — concentric traffic circle — represent almost as a funnel , bringing these small pieces of fluff inwards , collecting as they enter the navel .
However , the navel is not just a household for unwanted morsel of t - shirt . As an area with a large number of peel folds , not to mention a deep crevice , it is a trap for all sorts of dead skin , fling fat molecule , moment of rubble and assorted scales and proteins . Thus , that benign ball of fluff is in fact largely bit of you .

Armed with this rampant speculation , Dr Steinhauser hypothesized that the specialised fluff - catching hairs were in fact a deliberate attempt by the soundbox at clean itself . Rather than allow the dead hide and other human rubble to fester and become a feast ground for bacterium , the body use useable cloth to create an enticing aim for human Male to remove and riffle off . This take belly button frivolity correspondent to dried nasal consonant mucus in more ways than one .
As for the motion of why it is blue , that is something of a secret .
One theory is that the puritanical dye common in garments such as dungaree ends up dying everything in the belly button bluing . Even point of clothing that are n’t themselves low may contain drear components in the composition of their dyes , and this somehow dominates all other colors , like that juicy towel you accidentally put in with the white washing .
That is , unless you are an Australian hospital actor called Graham Barker . He claims his navel lint is red , despite rarely don any red habiliment . And this humans is definitely an expert on the matter . Mr Barker has meticulously compile and labeled his belly button depositsevery day since 1984 , earning him a place in theGuinness Book Of Records .
If you are not inclined to catalog your fluff as Graham Barker is , then you might need to assay reduce your capacity for gathering dust . The obvious solvent is to shave your paunch , although that is a impermanent root as the briary hair cursorily grow back , as Dr Steinhauser discovered when he set about the subprogram on himself . The other solution is to downplay the amount of available lint , which can be attain by outwear worn and old clothing , rather than new clothes . Having order that , you ca n’t keep wear the same clothes forever , so what else ? If you do n’t mind a bit of modification , a belly button tintinnabulation patently works wonders .
There is another preventive measure , however . In a separate study conducted by Australian researchers , they key out being slightly fleshy as a meaning risk cistron . So , you may either lose weightiness , thus supply a smaller Earth’s surface area for your clothes to chafe against , or you may gain weight , at which point you block collecting belly push button fluff and begin gather other things , like cheese sandwiches and small children .
And if you think all this is a bit too much contemplation of the bellybutton , Dr Steinhauser has a Bible for you . " The doubtfulness of the nature of navel fluff seems to business concern more people than one would think at first glimpse . ”