Why does it seem like some of my sweaters have a soft and loose "lint layer" on the inside?
Why does it seem like some of my sweaters have a soft and loose "lint layer" on the inside?
It's always particularly nice and soft the first time you put it on, but the one I got most recently is so bad it leaves a thin but thorough coat of black fur on my arms when I take it off. What's the production methods used when making sweaters like this?
This mostly happens because they're probably both cotton.
As you wash them, the oils the fabric was soaked in for protection slowly get removed, and the cotton fibres are rather crinkly. They can grab onto loose and weakened other fibres. This is also why some of them "ball" on the outside (no clue what it's called in English). Now on the inside, it's the shirt pulling loose fibres off the inside of the weapons, the tiniest break-offs.
To alleviate this - you can't entirely fix it, other than wearing different combinations of materials instead of cotton on cotton - wash your sweaters inside-out, which you should do anyways, in particular on printed sweaters. Instead of the insides of the sweater rubbing together and depositing lots of loose broken fibres for the t-shirts to pull off, those will get pulled off inside the washing mashine.
Note: This increases the speed at which you get the "balling" (since now the outside rubs against itself), but on fibres that can do this you want to eventually use a fabric shaver every so often anyways if you don't already.I think he OP is specifically talking about a certaing kind of sweatshirt that, instead of being woven on the inside, has loose threads. It's not even like a Teddy-fabric. The fabric is just non-woven and sheds microfibers like crazy the first few uses. But after a few washes that soft cushy inside is knotted and uncomfortable.
Is it just a coincidence that your username is one letter away from being a type of sweater?
Haha, yes in this case it is. It's rather a typo from "Caraighan Maconar", an Aes Sedai of the green Ajah from the Wheel of Time novels. Been using that forever, never realized how close it is to "cardigan", usually people think it's "Kerrigan" from Starcraft. 😄
The "balling" is called pilling
I believe this mostly happen with low quality clothing, they use shorter staple that deteriorate faster, aren’t as soft, and doesn’t feel as high quality. Brands mitigates this feeling by using chemical softeners that will fade with washing cycles and you’ll get what happens now.
Source: I’m really into clothing and used to buy cheap stuff because of cool prints or hype brands, now my high end cotton clothes don’t have those issues
Do you have any recommendations for high quality clothing?
There’s a lot but some of my favourites are Document (Korean brand), Arpenteur (amazing brand from my city), A Kind of Guise (German brand), Borali (very small label, the blog is very worth it if you can read French/use a translator), Orslow, ADER error (although some pieces have a bit too much plastic but the ones I own are very sturdy, also a bit overpriced), Maison Kitsune (same but I’m too much into foxes to skip this one lol), Matsuda (Japanese eyewear, handmade with awesome details and materials), …