Sorry Sandra,
I forgot there's all these northern hemisphere characters around; yes, I did mean Antarctica, although I have experienced cold in Canberra too.

Your comment about mohair reminded me of another aspect of cotton. Being cellulose, cotton burns easily, which means that many of the lovely cotton things we used to wear to bed when toddlers were a bit lethal if too close to a fire or a radiator while warming up for the jump into the cot. Artificial polyesters are worse, most of the time, because even if it doesn't burn most polyesters melt and do an effective imitation of napalm; not very nice on skin, especially for infants. These days there are design rules for such clothing to minimise the possibility of it burning.

But mohair, wool and other fibres we capture from mammals is/are keratin. Keratin tends to char rather than take a flame and this attribute gives it a high rating for clothing in the circumstances I'm in. Wool has an extra advantage in that, even when wet, it traps air effectively and thus retains much of its insulating ability; "Wool stays warm when wet" was the bushwalkers' advice for socks especially but also for jumpers and trousers in the southern parts of Australia.

And, although I still have several of my woollen shirts from Mawson and find them quite comfortable next to the skin, cotton is very nice.

Cheers, Rowan