Do you know why do cotton clothes shrink?
Why do cotton clothes shrink, while polyester ones do not? Cotton fibre made of cellulose shrink as the fibre swells when they get wet and contract as they dry
Hyderabad: Cotton is susceptible to this kind of laundry blunder in a way that synthetic fibers, like polyester, are not. A large part of this vulnerability comes down to the individual fibers of the cotton clothes.
Cotton fabric is made by weaving together fibers from a cotton plant, which themselves are made mostly of cellulose, a natural biopolymer. Cotton is prone to shrinking because its fibers swell when they
get wet and then contract as they dry.
If you’ve ever sweat in cotton clothes, you know first hand how well they can absorb moisture. On the other hand, synthetic fabrics are more resistant to sweat and shrinkage because their tightly woven
fibers don’t swell in water. On a chemical level, weaving cotton fiber for clothing introduces tension that creates a hydrogen bond network.
When variables like heat and water are introduced, this hydrogen bond network can transform, causing fabric to either relax or contract.
Even when they’re made of the same material, some cotton fabrics are more prone to shrinking than others depending on how the fibers are assembled into a fabric. Woven cottons, while they will certainly
shrink, see considerably less shrinkage than knit cottons.
