With the improvement of people’s living standards, people pay more and more attention to the quality of life, and the feel of the fabric is called the focus of attention. People buy clothes more and more pay attention to the requirements of the feeling. And the cotton fabric needs to go through a series of finishing processes to get the required feel. The hand feel of printed and dyed products (such as knotted and stiff) is mainly caused by the mechanical tension of the cotton fabric during the processing of a series of chemical treatments.
There are two common methods to soften cotton fabrics: mechanical method and chemical method.
Mechanical method is the use of a variety of soft cloth machine to play cloth, knead cloth and other physical processing, so that the relative position between the fiber and fiber, yarn and yarn change, thereby improving its bending rigidity, reduce friction resistance and achieve the purpose of soft feel.
The chemical finishing method uses softener treatment, adjusts the cloth, fiber tissue, fiber, and the body between the friction resistance to achieve the soft effect. The use of grease can reduce the coefficient of dynamic friction; other categories of softeners are to reduce the coefficient of dynamic and static friction. The smaller the static coefficient of conflict, the better the softness of touch. The smaller the difference between dynamic and static friction, the softer and smoother the feel. The choice of softener to be based on fiber and the required feeling to carry out.
Because the physical properties of various fibers are different, their surface properties are other, the effect of using the same softener is different. Surfactant-based softener for cellulose fibers to knitted products as the main object, the softener used can be grease, waxes, etc., and sulfated grease type emulsion, long-chain alcohol emulsified oil, or these emulsified oils and anionic surfactants of the compound. Anionic surface active skills can produce a thick hand with good rewetting properties. Cationic surfactants are also commonly used as softeners on cellulose fibers, as long as attention is paid to the fact that they cannot be used in the same bath with anionic dyes and whitening agents. In contrast, attention should be paid to the presence of discoloration, and a sulfated grease type softener of 0.5% to 3% of the pulp weight can be added to the sizing solution. The softener used on synthetic fibers can not use oily substances emulsified oil-type softener to prevent heat setting when the phenomenon of oil, most of the use of surfactant softener.
Clothes in the washing process, tiny fibers tend to entangle, tangle together, and even fracture clothing after multiple washing items. The alkaline effect of detergent to make the inherent fiber smoothness, extension and elasticity are affected, showing that the whole piece of clothing looks old, no shape, touching the feel is complicated, the more times the clothing is washed, the more noticeable this feeling. Of course, the cotton fabric after the softener conditioning, fiber restored to its original form, cotton fabric wrinkles are also significantly reduced. The original complicated ironing work becomes simple, easy, time-saving, and labor-saving. This is the secret of clothing softness.
If you express some doubt about chemicals, you can treat them yourself at home by adding 1/2 cup of vinegar to the last rinse to make the clothes looser and softer. Washing clothes with white vinegar can remove the unpleasant sweat smell on clothes on the one hand and also make white clothes more translucent after washing. This is thanks to the ability of white vinegar to remove alkaline sweat stains and neutralize the laundry detergent left on the clothes.
