Coping with high humidity weather

September 22, 2024 8:58 AM

I’m really done with the 80% humidity we’ve had locally and will continue to have for at least a week. Indoors I have a dehumidifier that I have to empty every 2-3 hours, fine fine. Outdoors it’s just awful.

The way I get around is walking + transit. Usually I’m in the city, sometimes I chill by the lake but it’s still that awful clammy yet hot yet chilly feeling I have to deal with.

I wear cotton or linen. I carry paper fans. Whatever I do, I end up drenching my clothes with sweat multiple times a day. So so so so so so gross.

My skin is an absolute disaster! If I use my prescription cream to deal with inflammations, I have to wear sunscreen, which just slides off in under 30 mins once I go outside. I take doxycycline and it doesn’t help whatsoever.

It’s not just about skin but comfort, obviously it just feels awful.

This former prairie girl NEVER liked the Great Lakes climate but it is way past just swampy. I know the whole world is more humid than ever and it’ll likely get worse :/

posted by cotton dress sock to Health & Fitness (16 answers total)

You could try playing with salts-based phase change materials and see if you could devise ways for your body to cool itself other than trying to evaporate sweat that just isn't going to.
posted by flabdablet at 9:29 AM on September 22

This won’t make you necessarily feel any cooler, but the Carpe brand products (whose ads you’ve probably seen saturating social media) really do work. I use the sweat-blocking face lotion under any makeup I may wear during the day and it definitely helps that sweaty glasses-sliding-off
-your-face feeling.
posted by pantarei70 at 9:53 AM on September 22

Down here in the tropics it’s not unusual for people to shower several times a day, or at least take a dip in the pool.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:57 AM on September 22 [4 favorites]

I don't know if there's a real solution other than staying in air conditioning all the time. But maybe a battery-powered fan would help a little.
posted by grouse at 11:15 AM on September 22 [1 favorite]

I bought a rechargeable mini fan for our swampy summer. It was somewhat helpful!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:35 AM on September 22 [1 favorite]

This probably differs from person to person, but when I was living like Durban, I found that air conditioning made things worse as I kept having to adjust to the heat and humidity every time I left the airconditioned space.

It helped me to reframe my discomfort as "this is something outside myself, there's nothing wrong with me, it's just really hot and I can accept decide to accept it like a lizard in the sun".
posted by Zumbador at 12:34 PM on September 22

Cooling scarves have helped me. You dampen them and they hold the water for a long time. They're good at helping me not overheat.
posted by Well I never at 12:50 PM on September 22 [3 favorites]

Sunhats let me avoid sunscreen, which helps me avoid that gross.

This does not help most of the time for practical reasons, but I do find that naked skin sweating is much less irritating than clothed skin sweating, because it doesn't lead to damp clothes.

I personally do not find wool or "quick dry" fabrics to be any better for me than cotton, but others seem to. One thing I will do is wear all cotton panty liners to absorb sweat, and removing/ replacing them lets me get back to dry again without changing everything.
posted by metasarah at 2:52 PM on September 22 [2 favorites]

Sorry, what is the question here?
posted by oneirodynia at 3:29 PM on September 22 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: “How do you cope with high humidity weather?”.
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:21 PM on September 22

I've found that any strategy that relies on evaporation at any level -- "dip fabric into water and let it cool your neck" or "moisture-wicking" type things -- are great when the humidity is low but fail utterly in the kind of conditions that you're describing. Well-meaning folks recommend them but don't understand the levels of humidity that you/we are actually dealing with.

(The one exception is moisture-wicking underwear, to my gynecologist's dismay. I try to wear it only when circumstances are truly dire, but it does make a difference in that specific use case.)

What has worked, minimally, for me, is doing everything I can to not work hard. Walk slow. Take the elevator. Walk slower. No, slower than that. If I do my best not to work up a sweat, then I'm only sweating in response to the conditions, not also in response to my body overheating, and my recovery time when I get back into blessed, blessed AC is much faster.

I said it was minimal. I'm sorry.
posted by spamloaf at 4:21 PM on September 22 [5 favorites]

I've got a lower tolerance for humidity than I used to (a humid 80 degrees is far more miserable to me than a dry heat 100), and about the only thing that keeps it somewhat tolerable when I'm AC-less is air movement. I haven't yet resorted to one of those mini battery-operated necklace fans like a family member of mine, but I've seriously considered it, because it might take off the worst of it, y'know?
posted by stormyteal at 5:21 PM on September 22 [1 favorite]

Humidity is my lifetime enemy. Try one of those around the back of the neck fans, I’m surprised how much it helps.
posted by tristeza at 6:03 PM on September 22 [3 favorites]

The back-of-the-neck thing is absolutely real. I have long hair that tends further toward frizzy as the day wears on, and one of the things I've found makes a huge improvement to my comfort level on a sticky summer afternoon is putting it up in a messy man bun.

If whatever tiny breezes are available have easy access to the back of my neck, it seems my brainstem doesn't fear overheating enough to turn on all the waterworks. There's some kind of sensory effect at work there that's specific to air movement; draping a damp cloth back there or wetting my hair instead of putting it up makes things worse for me, not better.
posted by flabdablet at 10:25 PM on September 22

For the sunscreen, buy brands formulated in high humidity countries. Biore is a good Japanese brand, I personally swear by Missha.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:36 AM on September 23 [1 favorite]

"I wear cotton or linen." two things about those fabrics: 1) they absorb moisture, and 2) they are often worn loose fitting. Both those things mean that my clothes feel sloppy when I get sweaty.

Maybe try some fabrics that don't feel different when they get wet, like polyester, dacron, nylon. And maybe try wearing some tight fitting clothes ( I realize there are lots of possible issues there: body image, work enviroment, etc).
posted by at at 9:31 PM on September 23