Winter is when people wrap meter-long scarves around their necks like constrictors and brave the miserable sub-zero temperatures wearing hats and gloves. However, one part of the body sticks out mostly naked from the mountains of fabric and wool – the nose, red from the cold, sometimes even dripping. An invention from South Korea now wants to give the neglected part of the body the protection it deserves. The so-called “nose scarf” is currently going viral on Tiktok and looks as silly as it sounds.
The nose warmer, which comes closer to the point than a nose scarf, works somewhat like a clown’s nose that you tie around yourself. A crocheted or knitted “overcoat” is usually used, which is placed over the nose and which is secured to the head with ribbons. Those that are visually reminiscent of animal noses are particularly popular in Korea. The influencer Jeff Kimie shows that there is more to it than just a social media crazy idea and that people actually wear such nose scarves in public.
“Winters in Korea are cold. And guess what’s going viral in Korea,” he teases in a Tiktok video, before showing off a sequined silver nose scarf. He has to laugh at the sight himself, but the overcoat is actually warm. “It can never get that cold that I wear this,” commented one user, receiving a lot of encouragement. Others, on the other hand, have a positive attitude towards nose warmers, consider the invention to be “smart” and “cute” and even hope that the trend will also catch on in Germany. One commenter writes that he has wanted something like this for a long time because he always has a cold nose. Another finds the look controversial, but the function seems to make sense. Is that so?
Experts think very little of the “nose scarf”. Yvonne Gilli, a specialist in general internal medicine and president of the Swiss Medical Association FMH, believes that the face is particularly susceptible to frostbite because people there have little subcutaneous fat to provide thermal insulation and it would therefore make sense if there was as little facial skin as possible exposed to cold. She told the Swiss newspaper “20 Minutes” that she doubted whether a coarse-knit nose warmer, such as those commonly used, actually provides effective protection against the cold.
The ear, nose and throat doctor Bernhard Junge-Hülsing also sees it that way. “Such a nose scarf warms the tip of the nose, as long as it is dry, when it is wet, it gets cold at the tip of the nose,” BuzzFeed News quoted him as saying. “The nose has the job of cleaning, humidifying and warming the air we breathe, and of course we also smell with our nose,” says the doctor. Functions that would be affected by covering. In addition, the scarf causes more breathing through the mouth, which works, but is more strenuous. He thinks the nose scarf is “complete nonsense.”
While Junge-Hülsing believes the trend is neither useful nor dangerous, Gilli warns. In her opinion, wearing the nose scarf could actually increase the risk of catching a cold, as breathing through the mouth does not filter and warm the air through the nose.
