Compare cotton and linen

There are not so many fab­rics of nat­ur­al ori­gin in the world that have a num­ber of valu­able prop­er­ties, such as the abil­i­ty to absorb mois­ture and pass air. Cot­ton and linen are one of them. These are the “old-timers” of the tex­tile indus­try, which are among the most com­mon in the world. How are they good and how do they dif­fer from each oth­er? Our experts know the answer.

Ancient and versatile cotton: development history, production, properties

The fab­ric obtained from the fruits of cot­ton has been known to the world for many hun­dreds of years. It was first men­tioned in ancient Egypt­ian chron­i­cles. The old­est prod­ucts made from cot­ton are about 5000 years old. India is con­sid­ered to be the birth­place of cot­ton. In her ancient writ­ings, it was men­tioned as the mate­r­i­al from which the pil­lows of the gods were made, allow­ing you to achieve peace.

Cot­ton came to Europe only by 350 BC. Then it spread to Africa. In Ancient Rus’, the mate­r­i­al became known much lat­er — only in the 15th cen­tu­ry, and began to be pro­duced every­where after four hun­dred years.

At first, cot­ton pro­duc­tion was con­sid­ered labor-inten­sive and finan­cial­ly cost­ly. Over time, spe­cial devices were cre­at­ed that made it pos­si­ble to sim­pli­fy the tech­nol­o­gy for man­u­fac­tur­ing cot­ton-based prod­ucts. Its mod­ern ver­sion is con­di­tion­al­ly divid­ed into the fol­low­ing stages:

1. Col­lec­tion of cot­ton fruits — after their ripen­ing, seed bolls are col­lect­ed (man­u­al­ly or by machine);

2. Sep­a­ra­tion and fiber sort­ing — pre-weighed raw mate­ri­als are sent to the gin­nery — seeds and fibers are sep­a­rat­ed, then the lat­ter are sort­ed by length;

3. Press­ing and cre­at­ing yarn — the fiber is pressed, yarn is cre­at­ed from the result­ing bales;

4. Cre­at­ing a fab­ric from threads — threads are cre­at­ed from the result­ing yarn, inter­twined with each oth­er to obtain a fin­ished fab­ric.

5. Cot­ton fab­rics are used to cre­ate cloth­ing (includ­ing sports­wear), cur­tains, fur­ni­ture uphol­stery, etc.

The main advan­tages of cot­ton fab­ric:

1. Hygro­scop­ic­i­ty — per­fect­ly absorbs mois­ture, which is impor­tant when it comes to bed linen or tow­els;

2. Breatha­bil­i­ty — fab­rics made of cot­ton are high­ly breath­able, pre­vent­ing sweat­ing in the hot sea­son and pro­vid­ing pleas­ant warmth in the win­ter;

3. Strength — cot­ton-based mate­r­i­al has a high degree of strength, allow­ing the fab­ric to with­stand sig­nif­i­cant mechan­i­cal stress;

4. Anti­sta­t­ic — cot­ton is not elec­tri­fied — the mate­r­i­al is not capa­ble of incan­des­cent elec­tric charge;

5. UV pro­tec­tion — per­fect­ly pro­tects the skin from ultra­vi­o­let expo­sure, which is impor­tant for res­i­dents of the south­ern regions;

6. Soft­ness — Cot­ton-based fab­rics pro­vide excep­tion­al com­fort in con­tact with the skin.

7. Among the minus­es of cot­ton, one can note a strong wrin­kling, a ten­den­cy to shrink, the appear­ance of yel­low­ness with pro­longed wear.

Rough and durable linen: origin and unique features

Although late­ly linen has been grad­u­al­ly replaced by syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als, this fab­ric with an incred­i­bly ancient his­to­ry of devel­op­ment is still high­ly val­ued by both pro­fes­sion­als and ordi­nary con­sumers. Despite the fact that for a long time of its exis­tence, flax has not changed much (nei­ther visu­al­ly nor in its prop­er­ties), this nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al still sur­pass­es many mod­ern ana­logues in qual­i­ty and key char­ac­ter­is­tics.

Annu­al fiber flax traces its his­to­ry back to ancient times: even in ancient Egypt, this plant was used for sewing clothes, and only priv­i­leged lay­ers could afford it. Often, snow-white linen was con­sid­ered a sacred cloth, which was wor­thy of wear­ing only by those who were close to reli­gious rit­u­als: priests, priests, etc.

Over time, many fab­rics of syn­thet­ic and mixed ori­gin appeared, but linen was not for­got­ten. The pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy of this fab­ric, amaz­ing in its prop­er­ties, has changed, but the mate­r­i­al itself has remained prac­ti­cal­ly unchanged.

In the process of obtain­ing raw mate­ri­als from the stems of a plant for the man­u­fac­ture of flax, a sim­ple and effec­tive tech­nol­o­gy is used:

1. Pulling flax — some­times — pulling (the plant is uproot­ed);

2. Dry­ing in sheaves;

3. Sep­a­ra­tion of the hard part of the stem;

4. Comb­ing flax with spe­cial combs — as a result, the fibrous mass is grad­u­al­ly sep­a­rat­ed.

It turns out the so-called rov­ing tape, used as yarn to obtain threads, from which linen is cre­at­ed. The nat­ur­al col­or of the fin­ished mate­r­i­al is light gray or beige. It is this option that is con­sid­ered the most fash­ion­able and valu­able, because under pro­longed expo­sure to sun­light, the prod­ucts become white. By the way, in the old days, this is how flax was bleached: under the open sun, after wet­ting and spread­ing it in the open air.

Short bunch­es of semi-fin­ished linen are usu­al­ly used to obtain coarse mate­ri­als: burlap, can­vas, etc. By the way, once upon a time, high-qual­i­ty, long linen could suc­cess­ful­ly replace mon­ey (it was used as pay­ment in many coun­tries).

Flax is a unique plant, because each part of it has found a wor­thy appli­ca­tion. So, the seeds serve as a source of valu­able lin­seed oil used in cook­ing and cos­me­tol­ogy, the rump (hard stem) is used as sound insu­la­tion in con­struc­tion, and flax threads are used to cre­ate many vari­eties of nat­ur­al fab­rics.

The final cost large­ly depends on the soft­ness, type of pro­cess­ing, and thick­ness of the mate­r­i­al. The most valu­able and, accord­ing­ly, high-qual­i­ty prod­uct is made in Italy and Bel­gium, the most wide­spread in the States and Cana­da. Domes­tic linen some­what los­es in qual­i­ty to all of the above, but at the same time it has a more favor­able cost.

What are linen threads used for? They serve as the basis for the man­u­fac­ture of cloth­ing, under­wear and bed linen, tow­els, uphol­stery fab­rics, ropes, can­vas, burlap, etc. In addi­tion to 100% linen, fab­rics with addi­tives are also very pop­u­lar: for exam­ple, cot­ton, lavsan, vis­cose. Such mate­ri­als are val­ued low­er, but at the same time more prac­ti­cal: they do not stretch dur­ing oper­a­tion and do not wrin­kle so much.

The main ben­e­fits of flax:

1. Hygro­scop­ic­i­ty — per­fect­ly absorbs mois­ture, which is impor­tant when it comes to bed linen, light cloth­ing and tow­els;

2. Hypoal­ler­genic — linen fab­rics are suit­able even for those who are prone to aller­gic reac­tions — the mate­r­i­al will not cause dis­com­fort when in con­tact with sen­si­tive skin;

3. Breatha­bil­i­ty — fab­rics made of linen are breath­able, pro­vid­ing com­fort in the hot sea­son and pleas­ant warmth in the win­ter;

4. Dura­bil­i­ty — linen-based mate­r­i­al has a high degree of strength, allow­ing the fab­ric to with­stand sig­nif­i­cant mechan­i­cal stress;

5. Anti­sep­tic prop­er­ties — it is believed that flax is able to heal small skin inflam­ma­tions, kill fun­gus and oth­er path­o­gen­ic microbes;

6. Anti­sta­t­ic — flax does not elec­tri­fy, since the mate­r­i­al is not able to accu­mu­late an elec­tric charge.

7. Among the dis­ad­van­tages of linen, one can note only a ten­den­cy to shrink after wash­ing and to wrin­kle dur­ing wear.

Key differences

Each of the mate­ri­als dis­cussed above, of course, is con­sid­ered an excel­lent exam­ple of the qual­i­ty of nat­ur­al ori­gin. But, nev­er­the­less, our experts made a thor­ough com­par­i­son, high­light­ing the “win­ner”.