Evaluation of Various Laundering Platforms on Color Retention and Surface Appearance of 100% Cotton Knit Fabric

Colorfastness is vital to garments for overall aesthetic appeal. Unless a consumer is wearing indigo denim, they are not happy when their clothes fade after multiple home laundering cycles. Not only is it important to choose dyes with good washfastness properties, but the finish used must be compatible with the fabric on which it is applied. Fabric softeners are the largest consumed finishes in the textile industry by amount and value.1 Fabrics treated with two major categories of softeners were used for this research. Fabric A was treated with cationic softener and fabric B with non-ionic softener. Past research from Cotton Incorporated has shown that these softener-based finishes may lead to surface fuzzing when exposed to home laundering.2 This surface fuzz may result in apparent color loss, giving the wearer the impression of color fading, when in reality the surface fuzz caused the fabric to appear lighter than it actually was.3,4 As the laundry appliance industry moves forward with high efficiency washing machines, the nature of fabric abrasion is a critical area of interest. How do laundry machine platforms interact with fabrics and contribute to this apparent color loss? Is it just a function of finish or is the method of laundry agitation key to fuzz generation? This cooperative study indicates that the low water platforms are as gentle on cotton knits as the deepwater technology. The test fabrics were quite robust to the mechanical action of all three wash platforms, High Efficiency Vertical Axis (VA), Horizontal Axis (HA), and Traditional deep water Vertical Axis (TV). Twenty home laundering cycles in three platforms produced few measurable differences in fabric surface changes between finishes and platforms.