Rayon – artificial silk (viscose)
What are the characteristics of artificial silk? What do viscose and rayon mean? And what about the uses and production costs of this material?
Viscose and rayon – two names for one material also known as artificial silk. It has been known for its good properties for reasonable price, thus it is likely that we will meet with this material on the store shelves more and more often. However, viscose doesn't belong to the latest inventions. In fact, it was introduced in the 19th century when the silk industry was threatened by a crisis.
In a nutshell, viscose is a fabric made from purified cellulose fibres. The raw material is typically wood pulp. The manufacturing process is similar to that of synthetic fibre – a liquid compound is forced through a spinneret to produce cellulose fibres. In the textile industry, words rayon and viscose are taken as synonyms. There are several types of rayon but textile fabrics are usually made from the viscose rayon. Whenever you check the labels on your US clothing items and find the word "rayon", it's practically the same thing as viscose in our country.
Soft, moisture-absorbent, flowy and cooling, these are the features that make it comfortable to wear. Do not reject viscose and its blends just for being semi-synthetic. Semi-synthetic doesn't equal plastic! Viscose fabric won't get lumped so fast and has no static build-up, which means the fabric is less prone to catch motes.
However, there are some disadvantages as well. Viscose is not a durable fabric, it can crumple or chafe through easily and some fabrics tend to shrink or stretch. It has poor resilience and unlike cotton, it weakens when wet. To prevent your viscose clothes from shrinking, do not spin-dry when using washing machine and better press the water out of the item by hand. Dry on a flat surface instead of hanging. This is especially true for knitwear. Frequent washing is not good for viscose clothing, so if you decide to buy a fancy piece, better get it cleaned by professionals.
Viscose is often blended with linen (such fabric usually contains a little over 50 % of linen) which makes it significantly cheaper than pure linen. In addition, viscose adds more softness to a coarse linen and the fabric is more comfortable to wear and pleasant to the touch. Keep it in mind when looking for a pure linen in your favourite shop. Anyway, considering increasing cotton prices, it is highly probable that viscose will replace some cotton pieces on the shelves.