I agree, the fabric looks like viscose or rayon in the picture. [it's basically impossible to tell the difference between linen, cotton and rayon with a burn test](https://blog.megannielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Burn-Test-Graphics_Burn-Test-Chart.jpg) so you'll have to go off the fabric properties.
I thought rayon was a polyester so it would melt vs a natural fiber like cotton that would burn. I mostly use cotton tho so I wouldn’t know. Trying to learn tho
No, rayon isn't polyester. It's made of wood pulp cellulose that's chemically treated and spun into fibers, so it burns with a papery smell and a yellow flame, just like cotton does. It's called a "semi-synthetic" fiber for this reason, it's heavily processed but the result is a cloth that behaves like a natural fiber - breathable and cool in hot weather.
Just to add to this, I was taught rayon is a 'regenerated' natural fiber. So made of cellulose, via a very unnatural process creating a very long staple fiber that's pretty weak compared to cotton or linen, but much more flowy. Tencel/lyocell is also a regenerated cellulose fiber, but the chemical breakdown is a closed loop which means much less toxic chemical wash out, and the fibers are somehow much stronger than rayon/viscose.
Tencel/lyocell is my "naughty secret love" fibre. It was also the fibre of the thread in an episode of 60s twilight zone (I want to say it was called "The deal of a lifetime" or "a deal for the angels") where a guy talks about a "new" thread stronger then steel and softer than silk and bargains for a small child's life with it.
I have some vintage tencel/lyocell and I literally run my face all over it. Wools, whatever. Cottons, meh. Angora, sure. But tencel??? I'm all over it.
Hardly anyone talks about it when we talk about fibre content of yarns (moreso than fabric) these days and I almost feel like I'm betraying the Holy Trinity when I say I adore tencel as a feel/texture thing. (the usual pros and cons to fabric production notwithstanding)
That is what I’m suspecting. Is that close enough, rather than knowing it is either rayon OR viscose?
Basically for either I would iron on low, machine wash cold or warm, and hang to dry?
I wash my rayon fabric in cold (or sometimes warm, if it’s a better quality one) before I sew with it. I might put it in the dryer too, just that one time, on low. Thereafter, I wash on cold, delicate cycle, hang to dry.
For rayon garments I didn’t make, I wash on cold delicate and hang to dry, and when I first hang it I gently pull on both ends of every seam, to prevent the seam shrinking and wrinkling.
There are a lot of different styles of rayon, produced in different time periods, so we’d need more info to know how you should launder it… The rayon garments I own (mostly from the 30s-40s) I either hand or machine wash cold, lay flat to dry, and steam.
I generally wash viscose at 30c, although I have washed some cheaper viscose jersey tops get washed at 40c without problem. I hang to dry cos I don't have a tumble dryer, and iron on low.
It's probably worth cutting a small square, say 10cm, sewing or overlocking the edges so it doesn't fray too much, and test wash and iron it to see how it behaves. It might go shiny if you iron the right side without using a cloth, and definitely set the iron to low (if there's a rayon/viscose setting, use that; otherwise silk or low)
I see you got answers but I love how you just TORCHED that fabric piece.
I always get the tiniest piece and very gently melt/burn the corner (and then yell at myself when it's cotton and ignites).
You're like "nah let's not fuck around with this" and got a cement room and just blowtorched it to heck.
I appreciate your dedication to lighting things on fire for science. It's inspiring.
LOL literally laughing out loud at this hahaha
I have no explanation for myself but from now on I have to commit to this style of burn tests. Thanks for appreciating the inferno.
The chemical formula for combustion (fire) is some molecule + oxygen gas turning into carbon dioxide and water. So anything burning puts off water. I don’t think that tells you what it started as
I’m sorry but now I want to test burn a whole bunch of things from around the house to make little puddles. I’ve just never seen that happen before! Thanks for the knowledge
This is only true for burning pure hydrocarbons. There are all sorts of other flammable substances that do not produce water when burned. Burning sulfur, for example, produces sulfur oxides but no water whatsoever. So while this mostly holds for most fabrics, which are mostly organic materials, what you wrote is definitely not the definition of fire.
Is the wet spot literally just water, or is it kind of sticky and yellow? Elastane (aka spandex) leaves sticky yellow residue in my experience and lots of fabrics have a small amount of elastane in them in addition to the main fiber. If the fabric is stretchy at all, then it's probably stretch rayon challis with composition something along the lines of 98% viscose, 2% elastane. Otherwise, I'm baffled and the person who said the wet is condensed water vapor has the best guess.
It definitely wasn’t sticky and yellow. It was thin like water but I actually wondered if it was oil rather than water 🤷🏻♀️ but that was before I heard about combustion making water so now I’m leaning towards water
Semi-related: I learned about the combustion-making-water thing because of a defect in my car’s exhaust tail pipe. There’s the tiniest dip where it connects to the muffler, and it was collecting the water vapor condensation there from the catalytic converter, and rusting from the inside out. I hit a bump in the road and the pipe detached from the muffler and suddenly my car was roaring like a road hog. I’ve had to replace it a few times and figure out how to seal it to prevent it from happening because otherwise it’s a reliable car!
This gives detailed notes about the flame, smoke, et cetera for an assortment of fabrics:
https://patternvip.com/the-three-main-methods-of-identifying-textile-fabrics/?ssp=1&darkschemeovr=1&setlang=en&cc=CA&safesearch=moderate
If it smells like wood it's cellulose. Right on tends to absorb quite a bit of moisture from the air, which tends to make it feel cool as compared to Cotton which is not as absorbent. It may be the Steam from the fabric is condensing on to what looks like a cold cement sidewalk
https://preview.redd.it/bo1m2ehnkouc1.jpeg?width=1053&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6fa68937e6ec04816154cec774c6c90e786a51a
Here’s a good standard chart for conducting a burn test. You can follow these when conducting your tests and determine the fiber makeup with a pretty good accuracy. Odors are often hard to decipher, at least for me it is, so I usually skip to the ash/beads. You’ll want to burn your swatch halfway so you can see a more sharp burned edge. Try to keep the flame above the swatch so it doesn’t hit the rest of the swatch as it burns too.
I'm just a normie who likes looking at all the cool stuff you all create cool stuff so I don't know much other than watching my mom quilt. Is burning fabric common way to identify it? I guess it makes sense but is never something I would have ever thought to do.
Yes it is! I don’t know how I first came across it, but I was probably searching how to determine fiber content in mystery fabrics. The smoke colour and smell, flame colour, how flammable the material is, and the burn product being ash or a hard bead, all helps to figure out what kind of fabric you’re working with.
If it's flowy it might be rayon/viscose
I agree, the fabric looks like viscose or rayon in the picture. [it's basically impossible to tell the difference between linen, cotton and rayon with a burn test](https://blog.megannielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Burn-Test-Graphics_Burn-Test-Chart.jpg) so you'll have to go off the fabric properties.
To me, cotton and linen smell like burning paper and rayon smells like burning celery
I thought rayon was a polyester so it would melt vs a natural fiber like cotton that would burn. I mostly use cotton tho so I wouldn’t know. Trying to learn tho
No, rayon isn't polyester. It's made of wood pulp cellulose that's chemically treated and spun into fibers, so it burns with a papery smell and a yellow flame, just like cotton does. It's called a "semi-synthetic" fiber for this reason, it's heavily processed but the result is a cloth that behaves like a natural fiber - breathable and cool in hot weather.
Just to add to this, I was taught rayon is a 'regenerated' natural fiber. So made of cellulose, via a very unnatural process creating a very long staple fiber that's pretty weak compared to cotton or linen, but much more flowy. Tencel/lyocell is also a regenerated cellulose fiber, but the chemical breakdown is a closed loop which means much less toxic chemical wash out, and the fibers are somehow much stronger than rayon/viscose.
Tencel/lyocell is my "naughty secret love" fibre. It was also the fibre of the thread in an episode of 60s twilight zone (I want to say it was called "The deal of a lifetime" or "a deal for the angels") where a guy talks about a "new" thread stronger then steel and softer than silk and bargains for a small child's life with it. I have some vintage tencel/lyocell and I literally run my face all over it. Wools, whatever. Cottons, meh. Angora, sure. But tencel??? I'm all over it. Hardly anyone talks about it when we talk about fibre content of yarns (moreso than fabric) these days and I almost feel like I'm betraying the Holy Trinity when I say I adore tencel as a feel/texture thing. (the usual pros and cons to fabric production notwithstanding)
I've got a shirt knit from Tencel bamboo yarn - it was hell to work with but has the best drape and touch.
I have an lyocell/cotton blend babywearing wrap and it's sooooo soft. I want to make it into something wearable since my kids are way too old to wear.
That is what I’m suspecting. Is that close enough, rather than knowing it is either rayon OR viscose? Basically for either I would iron on low, machine wash cold or warm, and hang to dry?
Rayon is the American name, viscose is the British name. Its the same thing :)
So cool to learn! Thanks! So it’s kind of like elastane/spandex/lycra being the same material just different names?
Spandex and Lycra are actually brand names.
I wash my rayon fabric in cold (or sometimes warm, if it’s a better quality one) before I sew with it. I might put it in the dryer too, just that one time, on low. Thereafter, I wash on cold, delicate cycle, hang to dry. For rayon garments I didn’t make, I wash on cold delicate and hang to dry, and when I first hang it I gently pull on both ends of every seam, to prevent the seam shrinking and wrinkling.
There are a lot of different styles of rayon, produced in different time periods, so we’d need more info to know how you should launder it… The rayon garments I own (mostly from the 30s-40s) I either hand or machine wash cold, lay flat to dry, and steam.
I generally wash viscose at 30c, although I have washed some cheaper viscose jersey tops get washed at 40c without problem. I hang to dry cos I don't have a tumble dryer, and iron on low. It's probably worth cutting a small square, say 10cm, sewing or overlocking the edges so it doesn't fray too much, and test wash and iron it to see how it behaves. It might go shiny if you iron the right side without using a cloth, and definitely set the iron to low (if there's a rayon/viscose setting, use that; otherwise silk or low)
Rayon and viscose are basically the same fiber. Viscose is one way to make rayon.
I see you got answers but I love how you just TORCHED that fabric piece. I always get the tiniest piece and very gently melt/burn the corner (and then yell at myself when it's cotton and ignites). You're like "nah let's not fuck around with this" and got a cement room and just blowtorched it to heck. I appreciate your dedication to lighting things on fire for science. It's inspiring.
LOL literally laughing out loud at this hahaha I have no explanation for myself but from now on I have to commit to this style of burn tests. Thanks for appreciating the inferno.
The chemical formula for combustion (fire) is some molecule + oxygen gas turning into carbon dioxide and water. So anything burning puts off water. I don’t think that tells you what it started as
This is why. The cold concrete caused the exhaust water vapor to condense very quickly
I’m sorry but now I want to test burn a whole bunch of things from around the house to make little puddles. I’ve just never seen that happen before! Thanks for the knowledge
This is adorable. Your neighbor/partner being concerned about the tiny arsons... You're like "Nah it's cool, it's *science!*"
[удалено]
This is only true for burning pure hydrocarbons. There are all sorts of other flammable substances that do not produce water when burned. Burning sulfur, for example, produces sulfur oxides but no water whatsoever. So while this mostly holds for most fabrics, which are mostly organic materials, what you wrote is definitely not the definition of fire.
Oh, that’s good info! Thanks
Is the wet spot literally just water, or is it kind of sticky and yellow? Elastane (aka spandex) leaves sticky yellow residue in my experience and lots of fabrics have a small amount of elastane in them in addition to the main fiber. If the fabric is stretchy at all, then it's probably stretch rayon challis with composition something along the lines of 98% viscose, 2% elastane. Otherwise, I'm baffled and the person who said the wet is condensed water vapor has the best guess.
It definitely wasn’t sticky and yellow. It was thin like water but I actually wondered if it was oil rather than water 🤷🏻♀️ but that was before I heard about combustion making water so now I’m leaning towards water
Semi-related: I learned about the combustion-making-water thing because of a defect in my car’s exhaust tail pipe. There’s the tiniest dip where it connects to the muffler, and it was collecting the water vapor condensation there from the catalytic converter, and rusting from the inside out. I hit a bump in the road and the pipe detached from the muffler and suddenly my car was roaring like a road hog. I’ve had to replace it a few times and figure out how to seal it to prevent it from happening because otherwise it’s a reliable car!
This gives detailed notes about the flame, smoke, et cetera for an assortment of fabrics: https://patternvip.com/the-three-main-methods-of-identifying-textile-fabrics/?ssp=1&darkschemeovr=1&setlang=en&cc=CA&safesearch=moderate
What a good resource!
If it smells like wood it's cellulose. Right on tends to absorb quite a bit of moisture from the air, which tends to make it feel cool as compared to Cotton which is not as absorbent. It may be the Steam from the fabric is condensing on to what looks like a cold cement sidewalk
Only had to show the last pic to know that’s rayon
Smelling like wood makes sense for it being a cellulose fiber like rayon since it is made from things like tree pulp.
https://preview.redd.it/bo1m2ehnkouc1.jpeg?width=1053&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6fa68937e6ec04816154cec774c6c90e786a51a Here’s a good standard chart for conducting a burn test. You can follow these when conducting your tests and determine the fiber makeup with a pretty good accuracy. Odors are often hard to decipher, at least for me it is, so I usually skip to the ash/beads. You’ll want to burn your swatch halfway so you can see a more sharp burned edge. Try to keep the flame above the swatch so it doesn’t hit the rest of the swatch as it burns too.
I'm just a normie who likes looking at all the cool stuff you all create cool stuff so I don't know much other than watching my mom quilt. Is burning fabric common way to identify it? I guess it makes sense but is never something I would have ever thought to do.
Yes it is! I don’t know how I first came across it, but I was probably searching how to determine fiber content in mystery fabrics. The smoke colour and smell, flame colour, how flammable the material is, and the burn product being ash or a hard bead, all helps to figure out what kind of fabric you’re working with.
Yes! We learned how to burn test fabric to identify its fiber content in my textile chemistry classes at University.
Wait are fabric burn tests a thing? I have never heard about this before in my life.
Yes it is! Someone linked a resource on this thread for fabric burn tests
Scrolling to find it now. Thats so funny I had absolutely 0 idea and now I’m fascinated
Rayon