Comparing flock and velor materials

We are accus­tomed to per­ceive fur­ni­ture as an inte­gral part of the inte­ri­or of the room. It is desir­able that it be not only com­fort­able, func­tion­al, but also beau­ti­ful, har­mo­nious­ly fit­ting into the design of the room. The prac­ti­cal side of the issue does not attract much atten­tion. But the dura­tion of oper­a­tion of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, its aes­thet­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics depend not only on the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the mech­a­nisms and the strength of the base, but also on the qual­i­ty and char­ac­ter­is­tics of the uphol­stery mate­r­i­al.

Expertology.ru jour­nal­ists found out that in the dec­o­ra­tion of fur­ni­ture, in par­tic­u­lar, sofas, mate­ri­als such as flock and velor are often used. There­fore, we inter­viewed expe­ri­enced fur­ni­ture mak­ers and design­ers to find out which of these two types of fab­rics is appro­pri­ate to choose for sofa uphol­stery. It turned out that flock is more durable and cheap­er, while velor is made main­ly from nat­ur­al com­po­nents, has enhanced aes­thet­ic qual­i­ties, but is more expen­sive than flock.

Criteria, standards and requirements when choosing the type of finish for a sofa

When you need to buy a new sofa or reuphol­ster an old one, con­sid­er the cri­te­ria for choos­ing a fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al:

1. Envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness and com­pli­ance with stan­dards. The less chem­i­cal dyes used in the man­u­fac­ture of tex­tiles, the bet­ter. For a sofa, it is bet­ter to choose a fab­ric that has Euro­pean qual­i­ty and safe­ty cer­tifi­cates. This is espe­cial­ly true for the choice of fur­ni­ture for chil­dren, teenagers and the elder­ly.

2. The com­po­si­tion of tex­tiles — it can be syn­thet­ic, nat­ur­al or com­bined. At the same time, nat­ur­al mate­ri­als are not always the best option, espe­cial­ly if the sofa will be active­ly used. It is most advis­able to pay atten­tion to the fab­ric, which com­bines the advan­tages of nat­ur­al and arti­fi­cial com­po­nents.

3. Design and style (pat­tern, col­or, prints) — it should go well with the shade and pat­tern of the wall­pa­per, the type of floor­ing, and oth­er fur­ni­ture in the room.

4. Com­fort — the sur­face of the sofa should be pleas­ant to the touch.

5. Wear resis­tance, which allows tex­tiles not to sag under heavy weight, is expressed in ten­sile strength, stretch­ing.

6. Den­si­ty — options with a den­si­ty of 200 g / m2 are suit­able for a sofa. The denser, the bet­ter, as wear resis­tance increas­es, which means that the cost price ulti­mate­ly decreas­es.

7. Abra­sion resis­tance — this indi­ca­tor is checked using a spe­cial test by the man­u­fac­tur­er. Con­sult with an employ­ee of the com­pa­ny in which you are going to buy a sofa or make a con­stric­tion. Ask what indi­ca­tor a par­tic­u­lar fab­ric has — tex­tiles must with­stand at least 200$ cycles of fric­tion before the first signs of integri­ty appear.

8. Resis­tance to UV rays and fad­ing — it must be indi­cat­ed in the fur­ni­ture pass­port. The opti­mal col­or fast­ness index is 3.5.

9. Resis­tant to high tem­per­a­tures and fire. This is an impor­tant fac­tor, espe­cial­ly if the fur­ni­ture will be in the kitchen, near the fire­place, in the chil­dren’s room. The safest tex­tiles in this regard are labeled the first of five class­es.

10. Air per­me­abil­i­ty — is impor­tant in the case when fur­ni­ture is sub­ject to heavy loads. If the fab­ric does not pass air well, it can sim­ply “dis­perse at the seams.”

11. Impreg­na­tion, which increas­es the mois­ture-resis­tant and dirt-repel­lent prop­er­ties of the uphol­stery, is a fac­tor that pro­vides fur­ni­ture with min­i­mal main­te­nance require­ments. The most reli­able prepa­ra­tions for impreg­na­tion are Teflon and Scotch­gard. If tex­tiles are processed by them, this will be indi­cat­ed in the prod­uct pass­port, oth­er tech­ni­cal doc­u­ment and on the label.

12. Can be cleaned with var­i­ous house­hold chem­i­cals. This issue should be clar­i­fied with the store con­sul­tant, since not every fab­ric can be exposed to chem­i­cals.

If the fab­ric meets the list­ed char­ac­ter­is­tics, then it is of high qual­i­ty, safe and man­u­fac­tured in accor­dance with GOSTs.

Velor for finishing the sofa — to choose or not?

Velor in its appear­ance, and when touched, is sim­i­lar to flock, vel­vet. There are dif­fer­ences between these types of tex­tiles, we will write about them below. In the mean­time, let’s con­sid­er the man­u­fac­tur­ing fea­tures, com­po­si­tion, pros and cons of velor, eval­u­at­ing it as a mate­r­i­al that can poten­tial­ly be used for uphol­stery of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture.

Usu­al­ly velor is made by inter­lac­ing threads and fibers or join­ing togeth­er a series of knit­ted loops. Velor fab­rics can be clas­si­fied accord­ing to sev­er­al char­ac­ter­is­tics:

The mate­r­i­al of the threads from which the fab­ric is made is most often used nat­ur­al cot­ton and woolen threads, wool is tak­en both pure and mixed. Recent­ly, syn­thet­ic com­po­nents have also been used in the man­u­fac­ture of velor, but syn­thet­ics are still quite rare in velor fab­rics.

How to weave fab­ric threads:

1. Knit­ted fab­ric.

2. Velor with plain weave.

3. Moire fab­ric — a com­bi­na­tion of vil­li of dif­fer­ent lengths and direc­tions of loca­tion.

4. Velor with a jacquard pat­tern, which is obtained by weav­ing one type of thread or adding lurex, silk threads to the com­po­si­tion.

Col­or­ing method:

1. Smooth-dyed velor (the thread itself or a ready-made web of mate­r­i­al is processed).

2. Print­ed — pat­terns and draw­ings are applied (stuffed, imprint­ed) over the mate­r­i­al using dif­fer­ent clichés.

There are sev­er­al types of velor, depend­ing on its pur­pose — cur­tain, fur­ni­ture, auto­mo­tive. For uphol­stery of sofas, arm­chairs, couch­es, man­u­fac­tur­ers use fur­ni­ture velor, as its char­ac­ter­is­tics — strength, den­si­ty, elas­tic­i­ty — allow to extend the ser­vice life of prod­ucts.

Dis­tinc­tive fea­tures of velorwhich make it a suit­able option for fin­ish­ing:

1. Excel­lent appear­ance, soft­ness — the use of this fab­ric will cre­ate cozi­ness in the room.

2. Eco-friend­ly, hypoal­ler­genic.

3. Vari­ety of col­ors, tex­tures and pat­terns. The sofa will fit into any inte­ri­or, if you choose a shade that match­es the main col­or scheme of the room.

4. Strength, wear resis­tance, resis­tance to clean­ing pow­ders, spe­cial solu­tions. Velor well tol­er­ates care with brush­es and a vac­u­um clean­er.

Velor Dis­ad­van­tagesas a mate­r­i­al for fin­ish­ing the sofa:

1. Stub­born stains (cof­fee, wine, berries) are poor­ly removed from the fab­ric, so a care­ful atti­tude is required.

2. As in the case of flock, the pile wears out over time, but this is a draw­back of all such mate­ri­als.

3. Price — it is high­er than that of flock, since fab­rics made from nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents are expen­sive.

Flock — characteristics, composition, pros and cons

A mate­r­i­al called flock is a tex­tile that is pro­duced with­out a loom. Flock was invent­ed in Chi­na and has a long his­to­ry. Pre­vi­ous­ly, for man­u­fac­tur­ing, the tech­nol­o­gy of glu­ing a small pile on tex­tiles using a resin-based sub­stance was used. For this, waste prod­ucts from the pro­duc­tion of wool, cot­ton, and lat­er syn­thet­ics were used.

Mod­ern tech­nolo­gies for the pro­duc­tion of flock are based on the method of spray­ing fiber onto an adhe­sive lay­er applied to the base. As a result, it is pos­si­ble to obtain a mate­r­i­al with a very soft and even pile coat­ing — an excel­lent imi­ta­tion of velor or even more expen­sive vel­vet.

The com­po­si­tion of the fab­ric depends on the tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties and pri­or­i­ties of the man­u­fac­tur­er. Cot­ton, poly­ester or nylon can be used as the basis for flock. Syn­thet­ic and nat­ur­al mate­ri­als can be used as pile. These are poly­ester, polyamide, vis­cose, cot­ton, wool. The most com­mon com­po­si­tion option is 65% syn­thet­ic mate­r­i­al and 35% nat­ur­al.

Why is it better to choose flock for sofa upholstery — material advantages

Let’s list the main advan­tagesthat this type of uphol­stery has:

1. Excel­lent eco­log­i­cal prop­er­ties and hypoal­ler­genic­i­ty. Thanks to this, it is bet­ter to choose flock for uphol­stery not only for sofas, but also for var­i­ous uphol­stered fur­ni­ture for chil­dren’s rooms.

2. High strength, wear resis­tance. Flock is not sen­si­tive to neg­a­tive exter­nal fac­tors. It is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to dam­age it — tear, pierce or cut. It tol­er­ates the treat­ment of deter­gents well, does not fade in sun­light. There­fore, fur­ni­ture with such uphol­stery can be installed not only indoors, but also on open veran­das, attics, in gaze­bos. Even the bright­est col­ors will not fade.

3. A flock sofa will last a long time also because the uphol­stery is resis­tant to stretch­ing, with­stands large tem­per­a­ture changes (how­ev­er, fur­ni­ture trimmed with this mate­r­i­al should not be installed next to a fire­place, stove, heater or radi­a­tor).

4. Flock is the best choice for pet own­ers, as fur­ni­ture with such uphol­stery will with­stand the claws of pets. The fab­ric is even called “anti-claw”.

5. Prac­ti­cal and easy to care for uphol­stery. Clean­ing the sur­face of the sofa will not be dif­fi­cult, it is enough to peri­od­i­cal­ly vac­u­um or brush with a brush dipped in soapy water. Even ani­mal hair is eas­i­ly removed from the sofa.

6. Excel­lent indi­ca­tors of mois­ture resis­tance (if the mate­r­i­al con­tains a min­i­mum of cot­ton or it has been impreg­nat­ed with spe­cial solu­tions). If you have chil­dren in your fam­i­ly, then it is bet­ter to choose flock as uphol­stery tex­tiles. After all, kids often spill drinks on fur­ni­ture. And if this hap­pens to your sofa, you will see how droplets of liq­uid, like balls of mer­cury, roll off the uphol­stery onto the floor. Flock per­fect­ly repels liq­uid. It will be enough to wipe the sur­face with a nap­kin to give it its orig­i­nal appear­ance.

7. The prop­er­ties and com­po­si­tion of the flock make it pos­si­ble to paint it in any col­or. Due to the avail­abil­i­ty of fab­rics for sale in a vari­ety of col­ors, you can use them to cre­ate an inte­ri­or in any style — from clas­sic to mod­ern. More­over, there are mod­els with draw­ings and pat­terns, as it were, imprint­ed on the fab­ric (flock on flock — two lay­ers of vil­li). This allows you to com­bine uphol­stery fab­rics of the same shade, but dif­fer­ent tex­tures and achieve an unex­pect­ed effect.

8. Sofas trimmed with flock have a noble, respectable look.

Final­ly, the flock is sim­ply pleas­ant to the touch. Sit­ting (and even more so sleep­ing) on ​​a sofa with such uphol­stery is a plea­sure.

Flock is bet­ter to choose for peo­ple with an aver­age income lev­el, since anoth­er advan­tage of this mate­r­i­al is a good price. It is quite inex­pen­sive, cheap­er than velor. And thanks to the long ser­vice life of fur­ni­ture with such uphol­stery, it saves on haul­ing.

I would like to note that flock has its draw­backs.which are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the advan­tages:

1. The fleecy tex­ture con­tributes to the fact that it wears out soon­er or lat­er. But if you choose high-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al from a reli­able man­u­fac­tur­er, you will not have to face this prob­lem soon.

2. The fab­ric is well elec­tri­fied — the flock lit­er­al­ly attracts dust. There­fore, you will have to vac­u­um the fur­ni­ture sev­er­al times a week.

3. Does not tol­er­ate expo­sure to sub­stances con­tain­ing alco­hol, bleach­ing agents and sol­vents.

4. A sofa uphol­stered in flock is not rec­om­mend­ed to be placed in the kitchen or in rooms where per­sis­tent odors are con­stant­ly present (for exam­ple, in rooms where peo­ple smoke). Because this mate­r­i­al absorbs all aro­mas well.

What is better to choose for a sofa — the similarities and differences between flock and velor

Experts note that two dif­fer­ent types of fab­ric have a set of iden­ti­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and prop­er­ties. And yet, flock and velor have dif­fer­ences. In most cas­es, the first is made with the addi­tion of a large num­ber of syn­thet­ic com­po­nents. And velor, which is con­sid­ered a more “pres­ti­gious” mate­r­i­al, is usu­al­ly made from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als. This cir­cum­stance has become the rea­son that flock is in the mid­dle price range, and velor is more expen­sive. There are sev­er­al oth­er aspects that empha­size dif­fer­ences between these types of uphol­stery:

1. The non-woven mate­r­i­al has increased strength, water-repel­lent prop­er­ties, and is more dif­fi­cult to wear out.

2. Velor breathes and pass­es mois­ture.

When choos­ing, experts rec­om­mend start­ing from such fac­tors:

1. Pur­pose and loca­tion of fur­ni­ture.

2. If this is fur­ni­ture that will stand in the nurs­ery or liv­ing room of an apart­ment where there are chil­dren, ani­mals, pref­er­ence should def­i­nite­ly be giv­en to flock, oth­er­wise the fur­ni­ture will often have to be pulled.

3. If this is a sofa that will stand in the office, in the recep­tion room, in the pre­sentable liv­ing room of respectable peo­ple, you can opt for velor. He will empha­size the sta­tus of the own­ers. Velor is also suit­able for all con­nois­seurs of sophis­ti­ca­tion, ele­gance and beau­ty. This uphol­stery will per­fect­ly com­ple­ment the lux­u­ri­ous inte­ri­or.

4. The over­all style of the room is also impor­tant. If the inte­ri­or is made in a clas­sic style, you can safe­ly use velor trim for the sofa. If the gen­er­al style is min­i­mal­ism, loft, hi-tech, it is bet­ter to choose flock.

5. If the sofa is planned to be used as a bed in an adult’s room, then both durable flock and warm, breath­able velor will do.

6. Price. Before buy­ing, you need to eval­u­ate what is more impor­tant to you — prac­ti­cal­i­ty or chic. If the lat­ter, then the high cost of velor will not become an obsta­cle to buy­ing an inte­ri­or item with velor uphol­stery. If finan­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties are small, it is bet­ter to choose a demo­c­ra­t­ic flock. Not only is it cheap­er, but it also lasts longer.

The mod­ern tex­tile indus­try pro­duces many vari­eties of uphol­stery. Flock and velor are fab­rics with a long his­to­ry and a good rep­u­ta­tion. Pick up the uphol­stery, start­ing from your own pref­er­ences, the fea­tures of the oper­a­tion of fur­ni­ture, and the sofa will last more than one year.