I feel like this is incomplete because the pigments could change the long wave emissivity of the shirts and affect the ir measurement.
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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Also doesn't take into account which shirt color is best for dissipating body heat (it's black)
NEEEEERD
They see me mowin'
My front lawn
I know they're all thinking I'm so
and nerdy
It's crazy how much hotter the "almost white" is compared to the actual white
There is no scale, maybe it's just 0.1 degree
yes, but because I'm fat, the loose clothing provides updrafts as my sweat evaporates...
is what I tell my metalhead/goth fat ass.
The study is a little old, but this is why Bedouins wear loose black clothing in the desert.
That is pretty cool. We should have seen a robe trend on golf courses around 2012. It's too bad we didn't, it would have been funny.
The results were clear. As the report puts it: "The amount of heat gained by a Bedouin exposed to the hot desert is the same whether he wears a black or a white robe. The additional heat absorbed by the black robe was lost before it reached the skin."
Bedouins' robes, the scientists noted, are worn loose. Inside, the cooling happens by convection – either through a bellows action, as the robes flow in the wind, or by a chimney sort of effect, as air rises between robe and skin. Thus it was conclusively demonstrated that, at least for Bedouin robes, black is as cool as any other colour.
Interesting 🤔
P.S. I like how my dumbass just kept reading and got confused why Bedouins eat bones.
Black still isn't a bonus in that case
"Black, it's cooler than green" ~marketing
They need to add heater packs underneath and thermocouple readings. While white is good at rejecting external thermal radiation, it is also poor at emitting thermal radiation. A white surface can be hard to keep cool if the heat comes from within. In particular, white will look like it has a much better comparitive advantage when imaged in IR than is likely to be the case in real usage conditions.
Yellow, red, and gray may be more comfortable in practice.
But most heat we reject isn't rejected radiatively, so you need a sweaty heater pack for a better test. You're right that the clothes will also affect how well the person underneath removes heat, a confounding variable, but pigment alone might be a small part compared to weave and fiber choices
red is doing pretty well, and I'm surprised with the other colors
I'm not convinced about the "black makes you look slimmer" part.
Black does make you look tougher though, dark colours do subconsciously.
Tone also plays a factor. Light green vs a dark green. So it’s not just the color itself.
Lol, yesterday was (hopefully) the last t-shirt day this year.
What this neglects to show is the amount of time different colors retain that heat.
It's not just the absorption, I heard black dissapates heat faster than other colors for instance. And how much you feel that heat has the most to do with how loose your clothing is.
I wish I had seen this at the beginning of Summer and the foreknowledge of what I would see walking around southern California all summer. I would print this out and hand it to every idiot I see wearing black on scorching sunny days. A majority of people walking around wearing black all summer! What is going on? Black is apparently in style lately because the world is falling apart & everyone is miserable
but are people this uneducated? White reflects light & keeps internal temperatures down! Black does the exact opposite! 🤦🏼♀️
Bedouins wear black robes, the guardian did some tests and they found out the amount of heat the wearer is exposed too is the same with black and white robes.
Taylor, Finch, Shkolnik, and Borut measured the overall heat gain and loss suffered by a brave volunteer. They described the volunteer as "a man standing facing the sun in the desert at midday while he wore: 1) a black Bedouin robe; 2) a similar robe that was white; 3) a tan army uniform; and 4) shorts (that is, he was semi‑nude)".
Each of the test sessions (black-robed, white-robed, uniformed and half-naked) lasted 30 minutes. They took place in the Negev desert at the bottom of the rift valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Eilat. The volunteer stood in temperatures that ranged from a just-semi-sultry 35C (95F) to a character-building 46C (115F). Though he is now nameless, this was his day in the sun.
The results were clear. As the report puts it: "The amount of heat gained by a Bedouin exposed to the hot desert is the same whether he wears a black or a white robe. The additional heat absorbed by the black robe was lost before it reached the skin."
Bedouins' robes, the scientists noted, are worn loose. Inside, the cooling happens by convection – either through a bellows action, as the robes flow in the wind, or by a chimney sort of effect, as air rises between robe and skin. Thus it was conclusively demonstrated that, at least for Bedouin robes, black is as cool as any other colour.
Depending on of the fabric and how tight it is to the body black can keep you as cool.
This study paid for by The Bad Guys ™️
But seriously
The additional heat absorbed by the black robe was lost before it reached the skin."
Thick multi-layer robes.
A different effect than single-layer black t-shirts & casual apparel that westerners wear. Returning our focus to OP's diagram.
Neat spectoscopy experiment. Notice how yellow is not receiving the heat? It’s because the atmosphere is refracting/absorbing it because “yellow sun.”
The one perk of black is the sweat might get evaporated by the shirts light collection.
Grey all day
Where is the legend?
He is shopping for shirts.
The problem with white and yellow is that they tend to attract bees, and without a flamethrower I'm completely defenseless against them.