Humans spend a lot of time and money keeping their hair from getting too oily. Polar bears, on the other hand, depend on that greasy sheen. The bears’ oily fur may help prevent ice from sticking to their bodies in frigid Arctic weather, researchers report today in Science Advances. The study—the first to demonstrate the anti-icing properties of polar bear hair—may one day inspire new, more environmentally friendly anti-icing materials for surface coatings, ski technology, or the aerospace industry.

“I don’t think anybody’s ever looked at this,” says polar bear scientist Andrew Derocher of the University of Alberta who was not involved in the work.

In the Arctic, polar bears keep warm thanks to thick layers of blubber and fur. This insulation causes the temperature of their fur to match the cold surroundings. That could lead to the accumulation of ice, which would be a problem for hunting if it were to noisily scrape against the ground and alert seals and other prey to their presence. (Inuit hunters, too, use polar bear fur clothing to move quietly on ice surfaces.) But that icy accumulation doesn’t happen—and until now, scientists didn’t know precisely how the bear’s fur prevents buildup.

At first, physicist Bodil Holst of the University of Bergen thought the anti-icing effect might be related to the bears’ hair structure. But a microscopic test revealed it was very similar to human hair, so she then turned to investigating fur oil.

In a multidisciplinary effort, chemist Julian Carolan of Trinity College Dublin worked with Holst to test the fur samples to see how well ice and water stuck to the hair. Carolan compared polar bear fur with ski skins coated in friction-decreasing chemicals called fluorocarbon, which are used to help skis glide, and with human hair, which contains its own natural oils. Some polar bear hair samples were washed to compare the effects of washed versus unwashed, oily fur.

The researchers froze blocks of ice onto ski skins, polar bear fur, and human hair samples, then calculated how well the ice stuck to those materials by measuring how much force was needed to push the ice block off. Unwashed polar bear fur was similar in effectiveness to the ski skins, where the ice was pushed off easily. But without oil in the fur, the strength needed to push the ice off was nearly four times greater. “It’s comparable with the best racing ski you can buy,”  Holst says of the oily fur. The team found that human hair, even though it is also oily, was less effective than polar bear fur.

The findings set polar bears apart from other cold weather animals, such as penguins, whose anti-icing properties come from their feather structure. Mechanical and aerospace engineer Pirouz Kavehpour of the University of California, Los Angeles, who’s studied anti-icing properties of penguin feathers, was surprised to see the bears’ anti-icing mechanism comes from oil rather than their fur. He adds that this difference could be due to the bears’ sea ice habitat and movement, which are distinct from those of cold weather penguins. (The penguin’s hydrophobic feathers are designed to shed water as it dives in and out of it.)

The team hopes its results pave way for anti-icing materials that are more environmentally friendly. For example, the ratio of glycerols and waxes in bear oil could inspire new types of coatings for skis and other kinds of surfaces, some of which currently contain toxic synthetic chemicals.

Although it will take some time for these anti-icing applications to be developed, having identified the chemicals is already “an exciting path forward,” Carolan says.