Fibre encyclopedia
Acrylic
Also called acrylic · akrilik · PAN · PC
Synthetic fibre built to behave like wool: crimped, bulky and warm for its weight. Its surface pills where it rubs.
Class
Synthetic
Comes from
From oil or gas
Where it comes from
Acrylic is spun from polyacrylonitrile. Labelling rules use the name when at least 85 per cent of the mass is acrylonitrile, and it is spun from solution rather than from a melt.
How it feels to wear
Air
Some air moves through the fibre
Water
Water stays on the surface
Heat
Holds body heat
Stretch
A little stretch of its own
Wear
Holds up to ordinary rubbing
Acrylic fibre is crimped so it traps air between the fibres, which is where the warmth comes from at a low weight. It holds almost no water, so a wet acrylic knit stays cold against the skin. Short fibre ends work loose at the surface and roll into pills wherever a sleeve meets a side.
Care
- Wash cool and inside out.
- Dry flat. Acrylic stretches while wet and keeps the shape.
- Keep the iron away entirely.
Acrylic softens permanently under heat, so a hot dryer changes the hand of a knit in one cycle.
End of life
Recycling route
No route running at scale
There is no volume recycling route for acrylic today. In the domestic washing machine measurements published in 2016, acrylic cloth released fibre into the wash water.
In a blend
Acrylic is usually knitted with wool or nylon, and no sorted route accepts the blend.
Skin notes
Mechanical
Acrylic is cut into staple, so fibre ends stand at the surface, and diameter decides how those ends are felt in exactly the mechanical way it does for wool.
Chemical
Acrylic is dyed with basic dyes, and the label names no dye class.
If your skin reacts to a garment, a dermatologist and patch testing are what can answer it. A label cannot, and neither can this page.
What the label cannot tell you
The label says acrylic. It does not give the fibre length or diameter, and those two decide how soon the surface pills and how the knit is felt against the skin.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and related labelling, Annex I. Checked 22 August 2026
- ISO 2076:2021, Textiles, man-made fibres, generic names. Checked 22 August 2026
- Napper and Thompson, Marine Pollution Bulletin 112, 2016, on fibre release from domestic washing machines
Written from primary sources and in our own words. Where a figure could not be traced to a source anyone can open, it is not printed here.
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.