About Bamboo Fabric Fiber
Bamboo fabric is truly made from bamboo. Fibers are taken from the plant and wound together. This fabric offers several benefits, including hydroscopic qualities and a naturally antibacterial nature. One of the primary benefits, however, lies in the fact that bamboo grows back every several years, so it is an extremely renewable resource and makes an ideal environmental statement. Does this Spark an idea?
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Bamboo Plant
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Bamboo is actually a grass, not a tree, that grows primarily in southeast Asia but can now be found in many moist places across the world. It has a hollow interior and excretes natural pesticides to help protect it from pests and diseases. Bamboo is used not only to make fabric but also furniture, floors and numerous household items.
Fabric Making Process
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Bamboo fabric is made when the bamboo plant is shredded apart and then resembled into bamboo yarn, when the fibers are spun tightly around to create the yarn shape. The process is similar to that of making paper, and the bamboo fibers are chemically cleaned and pulverized in the same way, but the end result is a yarn that can then be woven into a variety of fabrics.
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Benefits
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Bamboo fabric is lightweight and, when properly wound, it has a softness and drape quality similar to silk. Because it is a more renewable resource and the market is not yet strong, bamboo fabric also tends to cost less than similar products made of silk or cashmere. It is also biodegradable and has good breathing qualities.
Considerations
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Bamboo fabric may make an environmental statement, but it still has a high carbon footprint with required transportation and distribution, and the chemicals used to break the fibers down are often toxic. While natural bamboo has anti-bacterial properties, by the time the yarn is made it has usually been stripped of these compounds, so the anti-bacterial qualities of the fabric may be overestimated.
Grades
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Bamboo fabric can be purchased as 100 percent bamboo, but there are also many other options available. Some bamboo cloth is made from 70 percent bamboo and 30 percent lyocell. Other kinds are made from 70 percent bamboo and 30 percent combed cotton, or a 1-1 ratio of bamboo and cotton. Bamboo and modal yarn or corn fiber yarn are also combined.
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