This is an important skill for working adults to acquire, and we’re here to walk you through the process step by step.
Japan is in the middle of a very hot summer, and it’s got us scrambling to find new ways to keep cool. Earlier in the month we tried slapping 68 cooling patches on the upper body of our crack reporter Mr. Sato, and while that did provide him with some measure of relief from the heat, we realize that such crazy methods may not be for everyone.
So today we’re going to be testing an alternate crazy method for staying cool this summer: freezing a hat.
Now that we’d decided on our plan, though, we had to answer the question of whose hat to freeze? After giving it some thought, we settled on swiping the hat of SoraNews24 owner and founder Yoshio off of his desk. The decision to give Yoshio this reprieve from the heat was made as a display of employee loyalty and appreciation for our boss’ hard work, and not at all because we weren’t sure if freezing a hat would ruin it and didn’t want to risk our own clothing in this experiment.
So how do you freeze a hat? First, you’re going to need a large bucket or similar container, like the cooking pot we grabbed from the office kitchenette.
Place your boss’ hat inside, upside-down, and stuff a plastic bag inside the hat.
Then fill the container with water…
…and stick it in the freezer.
▼ Eating any unclaimed mango ice cream that happens to be in the freezer is optional.
Exactly how long it’s going to take for the water to freeze will depend on your specific freezer setup, but we let our boss’ hat chill over the weekend, and when we checked on it three days later, that turned out to have been plenty of time.
After setting the pot out to thaw for a bit, we were able to pop the hat out, and it had frozen into a solid block shaped sort of like a curling stone.
Between the solid black color of the fabric and the texturing of the ice, it looked oddly beautiful, like a slab of high-quality polished granite.
However, we had a lot of work left to do before this ice hat would be wearable. Next we heated up some water and very carefully poured it into the plastic bag that we’d placed inside the hat. This melts the ice directly outside the bag without dissolving the other frozen area, clearing out space for the wearer’s head.
However, doing this means that the block of ice loses its uniform shape, and in the process the center of gravity is altered. In order to make this hat something that can be used without sliding off the wearer’s head, we’re going to need to grind off some of the excess ice using a straight file.
This isn’t a quick or easy task, and we felt our arms tiring before we were even close to finishing. Still, you’ll want to work carefully so that you don’t trim off any more ice than you need to.
Making things extra tricky is that while you’re shaving off the part you don’t want, the rest of the ice is going to start thawing. So rather than doing all the trimming and filing in one fell swoop, we needed to complete the process in stages. Once the ice we wanted to keep started seeming like it was in danger of beginning to melt, we put the hat back in the freezer to resolidify, then started filing again the next day.
On Day 2 we also expanded our tool set to include a heated cutter…
…and a heated soup ladle…
…respectively allowing us to make precise cuts or soften up a palm-sized area all at once.
Finally, on the third day of filing/trimming, we were done, and it was time to test whether our boss’ frozen hat would actually make him feel more comfortable.
▼ “Wait, didn’t I leave my hat right here?” asked Yoshio.
▼ Oh, do you mean this hat, boss?
Now, some of you might now be recalling the experiment we previously did in which we froze Yoshio’s glasses, and yes, we did that again this time.
Now reunited with his iced-over belongings, we invited Yoshio to try them out. He started with the hat…
…but when he completed his outfit by slipping on the glasses, the freezing sensation was shockingly intense!
Now, some might say that the proper thing to do here would have been to take these frozen items off. However, Yoshio is always telling us to look for outside-the-box solutions, so instead of removing the sources of pain-inducing cold, we moved Yoshio himself outside, where the chill could be offset by the scorch of direct sunlight.
We walked him to the park near SoraNews24 HQ, which, like a lot of downtown Tokyo’s parks, has some pretty extensive concrete paving which the heat reflects back off of.
Upon arrival, Yoshio could still feel the searingly icy sensation from his glasses’ frozen earpieces on his temples. By comparison, the cooling effects of the frozen hat were slower to manifest, but when they did, they brought on a strong chill at the back and top of his head.
But in time, things started to stabilize, and Yoshio, amazingly, reached a state of comfort.
▼ “Ah, this feels just right.”
▼ “From the neck up, it feels like autumn now.”
So while it’s a time-consuming process, yes, freezing your boss’ hat is an effective way to deal with summer heat. Of course, you could apply this idea to your own hat too, but that would mean missing out on one of the other benefits we were able to reap in our experiment.
Like we said, the cooling effect is so strong as to make the wearer feel uncomfortable in anything but the hottest environment. Should your boss remove his frozen hat while still in the office, though, he’s going to end up with water all over his desk as the ice melts.
So the best plan is to freeze your boss’ hat so that he’ll have to go outside, but won’t be able to come back in until the ice is melted. That way your boss gets to cool off, and you can get your boss out of your hair for a while as he stands thawing in the park.
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]