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# The shower curtain keeps blowing in and sticking to my legs
- URL: https://www.thefrictionlog.com/06990/
- Published: 2026-10-18T13:10:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-18T13:10:02.000Z
- Description: Filed: the 1930s · Solved: by the 1990s · the weighted hem · by Nobody wrote it down
- Author: The Clerk
- Tags: Solved, #solved 1990

*I turn the water on and the curtain comes to get me.* — Renter, 1938

In 1938 Popular Science explained it: warm air rises, cold air rushes in, and the curtain gets pushed along. Sounded right. People noticed it happens in a cold shower too. David Schmidt, an engineer at the University of Massachusetts, ran a shower on his home computer, using spray software built for diesel and aircraft engines, and won a 2001 Ig Nobel Prize for a partial answer. The spray sets the air spinning, and the middle of the spin pulls the curtain in. The pull is weak, so a little weight in the hem holds it. Walmart and Target liners under six dollars already have magnets there. The hem got there first.

**Still bugs us**: the hem stays put now. The sides still drift in and let water out onto the floor.

### The full file

Before Schmidt, a favorite explanation was the Bernoulli effect: air that speeds up loses pressure, so the room pushes the curtain in. That story leaves out the water drops. His model put them in.

The fix is older than the science. In 1938, the same year as that magazine piece, Irving J. Piken applied for a patent on a shower curtain with magnets in the hem. The tub he had in mind was iron or steel under its enamel, and the magnets held on even with the water running hard. In 1986 Kenneth Tarlow and Barbara Arner applied for a patent on a lead weight in a little vinyl pouch that snaps onto the hem. Their patent blamed steam for pulling the curtain in, letting cold air in and water out onto a slippery floor. It lapsed when nobody paid the fees.

Magnets only grab a metal tub, and a 2005 patent filing said those aren't common anymore. On plastic or fiberglass the magnet is just a weight, which is all you needed. Schmidt also said a weak shower, or a showerhead that doesn't break the water into fine drops, may never get the air spinning. Sew in some weight and be done with it.