Fibre encyclopedia
What the fibre names on a care label actually mean
Twenty six fibres, the ones that turn up on labels in Indonesia. Each entry says where the fibre comes from, how it behaves when it is worn and washed, what happens to it at the end, and, at the close, what the label does not tell you.
In English and Bahasa Indonesia. No fibre here is scored, graded, or placed above another. Where a fibre is described against a more familiar one, that explains it rather than rates it.
How an entry is laid out
The same eight fields in the same order, so two fibres can be read side by side without learning a new layout.
Names
The name plus the other names it goes by. Elastane, spandex and Lycra are one fibre, and the reason a label cannot be matched to what someone knows is usually that the label used the third name.
Class and origin
Natural, synthetic or regenerated, and whether it started as a plant, an animal, oil and gas, or dissolved pulp.
How it feels to wear
Air, water, heat, stretch and how long it holds up to rubbing.
Care and end of life
What the washing instruction is actually protecting, and which recycling route the fibre can enter given the blend it is in.
Skin notes
At fibre level only, with two mechanisms kept apart: mechanical, which follows the shape of the fibre, and chemical, which lives on dyes and finishes that a label does not declare.
What the label cannot tell you
The closing line of every entry. Each one names its own limit.
The fibres
26 entries
Abaca
Naturalabaca · abaka · manila hemp
Leaf-sheath fibre from a banana relative. Long, stiff and salt-tolerant, which is why it went into rope before it went into cloth.
Acetate
Regeneratedacetate · asetat · CA
Cellulose that has been chemically altered rather than only dissolved, so it is no longer cellulose in the way viscose is. Common as lining.
Acrylic
Syntheticacrylic · akrilik · PAN
Synthetic fibre built to behave like wool: crimped, bulky and warm for its weight. Its surface pills where it rubs.
Alpaca
Naturalalpaca · alpaka · WP
Fibre from an alpaca fleece. Straighter than sheep wool, with little crimp, so it hangs rather than springs back.
Bamboo
Regeneratedbamboo · bambu · bamboo viscose
There is no textile fibre called bamboo in the labelling rules. Cloth sold as bamboo is nearly always viscose whose pulp came from bamboo.
Cashmere
Naturalcashmere · kasmir · WS
The fine undercoat of the cashmere goat, combed out rather than shorn. Narrow fibre, short staple, and a surface that pills early.
Cotton
Naturalcotton · katun · kapas
Short fibre from the seed hair of the cotton plant. It takes water in, has no stretch of its own, and is often spun with a small share of something else.
Cupro
Regeneratedcupro · kupro · cuprammonium rayon
Regenerated cellulose dissolved in a copper and ammonia solution, spun very fine. Most of it goes into lining.
Elastane
Syntheticelastane · spandex · Lycra
The fibre that makes cloth stretch and come back. It appears on labels in small percentages, and it decides two large things.
Hemp
Naturalhemp · true hemp · serat hemp
Stem fibre from the fibre varieties of Cannabis sativa. Coarser than flax as it arrives, and softened by processing rather than by the plant.
Jute
Naturaljute · goni · karung goni
Coarse stem fibre used for sacking and interior cloth. It holds lignin, so light turns it brown, and it loses strength when wet.
Kapok
Naturalkapok · kapuk · randu
Hollow seed-hair fibre with a waxy skin. It floats, it does not take water in, and it is too slippery to spin on its own.
Linen
Naturallinen · flax · lin
Stem fibre from the flax plant. Stronger wet than dry, quick to let water go, and stiff enough to crease along a fold.
Lyocell
Regeneratedlyocell · TENCEL · CLY
Regenerated cellulose dissolved in an organic solvent without forming a derivative. TENCEL is a brand name for it, which is why one cloth can carry two names.
Modacrylic
Syntheticmodacrylic · modakrilik · MAC
Acrylic with the chain modified, which changes how it behaves near heat. It goes into fake fur and into workwear that has to pass a flame test.
Modal
Regeneratedmodal · CMD · modal rayon
Regenerated cellulose made by a modified viscose process, defined by how much force it holds when wet.
Nylon
Syntheticnylon · nilon · polyamide
Melt-spun fibre with amide links in the chain. It holds up to rubbing longer than the other common clothing fibres.
Pineapple leaf fibre
Naturalpineapple fibre · serat nanas · piña
Leaf fibre from the pineapple plant, taken from the leaves the fruit harvest leaves behind. Long, stiff and low in stretch, and for piña cloth joined by hand rather than spun.
Polyester
Syntheticpolyester · poliester · PES
Fibre spun from molten plastic. It takes almost no water into the fibre, it dries fast, and it releases microfibres when washed.
Polypropylene
Syntheticpolypropylene · polipropilena · PP
The lightest fibre in common textile use. It floats, it takes in no water at all, and it is coloured before it becomes fibre.
Ramie
Naturalramie · rami · china grass
Stem fibre from a tropical nettle. Long, smooth and stiff, and in Indonesian it shares a name with flax, which is a different plant.
Recycled cotton
Naturalrecycled cotton · katun daur ulang · post-consumer cotton
Cotton shredded back out of cloth and spun again. The fibre is shorter than new cotton, so it is nearly always spun with something else.
Recycled polyester
Syntheticrecycled polyester · poliester daur ulang · rPET
Polyester spun from polymer that has been through one life already, most often as a drinks bottle rather than as cloth.
Silk
Naturalsilk · sutra · mulberry silk
Protein filament reeled from a cocoon in one continuous length. Strong for its weight, weakened by sunlight and by alkali.
Viscose
Regeneratedviscose · viskosa · rayon
Cellulose dissolved out of plant pulp and spun again as fibre. It takes in more water than cotton and loses much of its strength while wet.
Wool
Naturalwool · wol · merino
Protein fibre from a sheep fleece, with scales on the surface and a natural crimp. It holds heat while damp, and it felts under heat and rubbing.
Blends
A blend is not a fibre, and it is most of what a label says
There is no entry for a blend here, because a blend is not a fibre class. What a blend does is change which of the entries applies, and which route the cloth can still take at the end.
The small number does the most work
97 per cent cotton with 3 per cent elastane is a live example from an Indonesian hangtag. The 3 per cent is what decides when the cloth stops returning to shape, and it places the other 97 outside mechanical cotton recycling. Two chapters of a passport are filled from one number the brand already printed.
Fibres spun together do not come apart
Once two fibres are spun into one yarn, no mechanical process separates them again. That is why nearly every recycling route asks for a single fibre input, and why a sorting line pulls blends out rather than processing them.
The trade names on Indonesian labels
TC is a polyester and cotton blend, usually with polyester in the larger share. CVC is the same two fibres with cotton in the larger share. PE on a hangtag almost always means polyester rather than polyethylene. None of these are fibre names in the labelling rules, and none of them state a percentage.
A blend with no percentages answers nothing
Cotton and polyester without numbers cannot be read: at 90 and 10 it behaves as cotton, at 20 and 80 it behaves as polyester, and the label reads the same either way.
What this encyclopedia does not do
- It does not score, grade or rank fibres. There is no better and worse here, and nothing on this page adds up to a number.
- It describes fibre classes, never a particular garment. Polyester releasing microfibres when washed is a fibre fact; what a specific piece does is not something we can verify or state.
- It says nothing about brands. Mula describes labels.
Read the label you are holding
The scan surface reads one care label and names which questions it answers and which it leaves out. A passport says for one specific piece what a label cannot: the composition with its percentages, where the cloth came from, who worked on it, how to repair it and where it goes next.