Soil release finish

The purpose of soil release finishes is to improve soil removal from hydrophobic of durable press finished fabrics. Soil release does not include detergency of particulate soil but it reduces soil redeposition.
Soiling can be of two types, dry soiling (actual use) and wet soiling (during laundering operations where soil redeposition occurs). Soil is transported to the fabric and then deposited on to it by

• Air currents
• Electrostatic attraction
• Contact transfer from soiled surface to cleaner surface by pressure, abrasion, impingement.

The soil release finishes are available as emulsion, solutions or dispersions and they are either hygroscopic or increase hydrophilicity on water immersion. they also function as antistats. The soil release activity of finish should last for 20-50 home launderings and they should be stable to abrasion. The finish should not be toxic, irritant and should not affect the durablity and wear life of the garment.

The soil release effect may be imparted by a) topochemical reactions such as grafting, hydrolysis or oxidation, b) durable physical adsorption of surfactnats on fibre surface and c) coating with soil release polymers.

Denim Jeans

In the growing world market for leisure wear, denim holds a dominating position today. In the 1950’s when Marlon Brando and James Dean made blue jeans respectable, denim began its progress round the world. Since then it developed into a fashion unequaled in its variety. It is one of the most successful textile fabrics ever developed. This classic fabric has been in use for a long time across the world. Traditionally, denim has been referred to as a heavy grade cotton twill fabric with indigo dyed warps. Today, denim jeans is available in a rainbow of colors and in black color as well, in addition to without any color at all.
Denim continues to be mainly used for jeans both women’s jeans and men’s jeans. Denim is bleached, brushed, sanded, ice-washed, ripped, torn and even shot with bullets to give character to what is otherwise a rather mundane material. Denim jeans is truly a fabric that appeals to all classes of people of all ages. For women’s jeans, it comes in various sizes depending on the body type such as slim, curvy, athletic, full figure, short and long which can be found on various online shoping sites.

Flame retardant textiles

Flame retardant textiles are found in a variety of textile products ranging from clothing, to automotive textiles, to home furnishings. Depending on chemical nature, there are four main classes flame retardants. These are inorganics (e.g. aluminum trioxide and magnesium hydroxide), nitrogen-based organic, organophosphorus (e.g. phosphate esters), and halogenated flame retardants Flame retardants may also be classified depending on their fastness to laundering as non-durable, semi-durable, or durable. A nondurable finish does not withstand laundering and must be reapplied. Semi-durable treatments fall in between nondurable and durable. Depending on the end use of the product, the durability of the treatment is important. For example, apparels should have durable flame retardant treatment since they are washed regularly while home textile fabric would not.

Flame retardants are evaluated for many properties during burn testing including char length, after-flame and afterglow times, and melt drip. ASTM D 6413-99 defines char length as the distance of visible fiber damage beginning at the bottom edge where the flame was applied. After-flame time is a measurement of how long a substance continues to flame once the ignition source is removed and afterglow is how long a substance glows after the ignition source is removed. Self-extinguishment is defined as when the glowing or flaming of a specimen goes away after the flame source is removed.