Originally Posted by
matroskin
So so far the only good reason I should avoid cotton socks is to avoid sweaty feet. Can someone share a story of using cotton socks for 5-10-20 years and then getting dry feet after switching to nylon/dry feet/fancy-name-synthetics socks?
Try getting cotton wet ( rain, sweat, whatever ) when it's cold ( < 40 F ) out. Actually, don't; any hiker will tell you "cotton kills." Cotton socks won't kill you, because you won't get lost in the wild in them, but they're
pure agony if it starts to rain in December. Wool keeps about 80 % of its insulating power when it's saturated, while cotton steals the heat from your body.