Fabrics
What clothes are made of, fiber by fiber: where it comes from, how it wears, and what to watch for on the label. Or compare two fabrics side by side, or see what a blend like 60% cotton / 40% polyester means.
🌿 Natural: plant
Grown, then spun. Breathable and biodegradable.
Cotton
The everyday plant fiber: soft, breathable and easy to wash.
Linen
Cool, crisp and strong, from the flax plant.
Hemp
A tough plant fiber a lot like linen.
🐑 Natural: animal
Hair, fleece and silk. Warm, odor-resistant, biodegradable.
Wool
Warm even when damp, and it resists odor.
Cashmere
Goat underdown: very soft and very warm for its weight.
Alpaca
Warm, silky fleece from the alpaca, often softer than sheep’s wool.
Silk
Smooth, lustrous protein fiber spun by silkworms.
Mohair
Shiny, fuzzy hair from Angora goats.
🧪 Semi-synthetic
Made from plants, but dissolved in chemicals and re-spun.
Rayon
Wood pulp dissolved in chemicals and spun into a soft, drapey fiber.
Bamboo
Almost always rayon made from bamboo pulp, not a natural bamboo fiber.
Modal
A stronger, softer kind of rayon, made from beech wood.
Lyocell
A wood-pulp fiber made in a near-closed loop that recovers almost all its solvent.
Cupro
Silky fiber made from the fuzz left on cotton seeds.
Acetate
A shiny wood-pulp fiber used mostly for linings.
🏭 Synthetic
Plastics made from oil. Durable and cheap; they shed microplastics.