How to tell difference between cotton and polyester fabric？

In some clothing ingredient list often see cotton or polyester with two kinds of fabrics, then what is cotton? What is polyester? What are the differences and advantages and disadvantages? What's the difference between cotton and polyester woven together?

What is cotton?

Cotton fabric, also known as cotton fabric, is a fabric woven with cotton yarn as raw material. Cotton fabric has become one of the most commonly used fabrics with excellent wearability, widely used in clothing fabric, decorative fabric and industrial fabric.

Characteristics of cotton:

Cotton fabric has strong water absorption, wear resistance and washing resistance, soft and comfortable, warm in winter and cool in summer. But its elasticity is poor, shrinkage rate is large, easy to wrinkle. Cotton fabric color is generally more bright, but poor acid resistance, poor elasticity, shrinkage, easy to wrinkle, easy to poison, poor light resistance, but moth resistance.

What is polyester?

Polyester, commonly known as dacron, is the simplest of the three synthetic fibers and is widely used to make clothing fabrics and industrial goods. Polyester is relatively cheap.

Polyester is a fiber made from PTA or DMT and EG by esterification or transesterification and polycondensation reaction. Dacron is widely used in clothing and industrial products. Polyester has excellent shaping properties. Polyester yarn or fabric after forming flat, fluffy shape or fold, after many times of washing in use, still can stay unchanged.

The characteristics of polyester fabric:

1. Polyester fabric has high strength and elastic recovery ability, so it is firm and durable, wrinkle resistant and ironing free.

2. Polyester fabric has poor moisture absorption, which makes it stuffy in summer and easy to bring static electricity in winter, affecting comfort. However, it is very easy to dry after washing, and the wet strength almost does not decrease, no deformation, and has good washable performance.

3. Polyester is the fabric with the best heat resistance among synthetic fabrics. It is thermoplastic and can be made into pleated skirts with long-lasting pleats.

4. Polyester fabric has better light resistance, which is better than natural fiber fabric except for nylon. In particular, the sun resistance behind the glass is very good, almost the same as the eye fiber.

5. Polyester fabric has good resistance to various chemicals. Acid, alkali to its damage degree is not big, at the same time not afraid of mold, moth.

Disadvantages of polyester:

Polyester is made of chemical fiber, so it doesn't sweat easily. There is a prickly feeling to the touch, it is easy to static, and it looks bright when tilted.

How to tell the difference between "cotton" and "polyester"?

Pure cotton cloth: cloth surface luster is soft, feel soft, elasticity is poor, easy to wrinkle. After pinching cloth with the hand, loosen, visible obvious crease, and crease restores not easily original state. Take out a few warp and weft from the edge of the cloth and twist it to see that the fiber length is different. Close to flame, no shrinkage and melting. Contact the flame. Burning rapidly, the flame is yellow with blue smoke. Leave the flame and continue to burn. Burning paper from the taste of ashes, linear. The ash is soft, light gray, easy to touch into powder.

Polyester cotton cloth: brighter than pure cotton cloth, flat cloth, clean without yarn or impurities. Feel smooth, crisp, better elasticity than pure cotton. Hand pinch cloth after loosening, crease is not obvious, and easy to restore to original state, close to the flame, first contraction, after melting. Contact flame, melting combustion. Leave the flame and continue to burn. The flame is yellowish-white and bright with a line of black smoke at the top. Special aroma, dark brown amorphous lump or small spheroid, can be crushed with fingers.

There are two other differences:

A, cotton: feel very soft, comfortable, cotton goods are more suitable for the production of underwear, clothing, bedding four sets.

Polyester: it is not easy to sweat, feels prickling and pulling, and is prone to static electricity.

What are the benefits of cotton and polyester interwoven clothing?

Cotton fabric has strong water absorption, wear resistance and washing resistance, soft and comfortable, but its elasticity is poor, shrinkage rate is large, easy to wrinkle. Dacron gives the fabric excellent washing fastness, long lasting shape retention, excellent one - time setting and good elasticity. Its interweave with cotton to improve the cotton wrinkle, wear resistance, poor elasticity shortcomings, maintain the advantages of cotton permeability, comfort, moth-eaten.