Why do people say it feels cooler to wear black in Makkah?

OH God!... I am a saudi-american living in Saudi.. I hate, hate, HATE black.. Thats my #1 complaint.. why black!.. its a cultural tradition, nothing to do with actual Islam at all... (some say it is, but I never found documentation to that effect).. All God wants us women to do is dress concervitively, cover our hair, and not show our figures, see through material, or tight body hugging material etc.. and not flashy colors, but black?.. I feel we can decently cover with alternative colors.. and I do just that.. I have light beige, light blue, and light olive green abayas and I like light silk scarves, not unlike the one you see in my avatar pic...

black sucks the heat in.. I cant stand black... the men get to wear white and are always cool, but we women have BLACK nylon robes? No way! it just holds the heat and doesnt allow your body to breathe.. Id sufficate from dehydration and sun stoke... So I like to wear cotton light colored abayas..

Well, I white is usually more cooler, but take in consideration that Mecca is a desert country, and in the middle east there is alot of sand, which means it gets dusty easily. I think black hides dirt a bit more, and also is not so see thru like white can be.

Black is purely a cultural thing and has got nothing to do with religion. Go for a cotton robe/dress in a light color. In Mecca you can wear any color you wish as long as it is not shear and covers u properly. I go to Umrah every year and I see women from all over the world in different color dresses and designs and they usually practice their Umrah without harassment from anyone.

of course it's not cooler! this is pure science!! they try to give a positive touch to something unacceptable, which is the niqab their stupid males oblige them to wear (oh they will probably tell you they "love" it and "feel safe and protected" by wearing it, and that nobody obliges them to wear it). The truth is that the niqab has nothing to do with islam...some islamist started to call it khimar , because khimar is a word you find in quran (but god asked the prophet's wives to wear it, not all women) and the real definition of a khimar (in older arab dictionnaries! don't try to look in the newer ones, they've probably already changed it!) is a simple long veil you drop on your head and cross around you chest in a loose way without tightening it...and NO COLOUR is specified! This is a wahabi thing, it's the severest and darkest interpretation of islam, that led to people like...binladen !!

You asked the same question under Egypt.

Are you two places at the same time?

Wouldn't hurt to try both, I guess.