MIRACLE FABRICS

I have been in the textile business for 50 plus years and during that time I have been told about a variety of materials that I put into the category of “miracle fabrics”. According to my copy of the Oxford Universal Dictionary; “MIRACLE means the following; A marvelous event exceeding the known powers of nature, and therefore supposed to be due to special intervention of the Deity or of some super natural agency”. Do miracles actually happen or exist? I think not!

Now I’ll list the fabrics or processes added to fabrics that fall into the category of miracle fabrics in order of appearance as best as I can remember into the market place; THINSULATE; GORE-TEX; PRIMALOFT; OUTLAST and COMFORTEMP; CELLIANT and DOWN. There may very well be others but the lasted for such a short period of time I can’t remember what they were, but I do know they were supposed to be either waterproof and breathable (vapor permeable) or a phenomenally efficient insulator. And of course there is down.

Over the many years these products have been sold to companies for use in the manufacture of their products which in turn are sold to the public these companies have made profits at both the supplier level and the manufacturing level all based upon erroneous information that suggests that these fabrics are miracle fabrics. Tragically the general public believes the bombardment of advertising that these companies generate, so people buy the many products that incorporate these fabric as one of the components and in many cases a major component of the finished product.

Thinsulate is in my educated opinion not an insulating medium and while 3-M Company sold it as such it never has performed for that purpose whether the finished product is jacket, sleeping bag, hand-wear, foot-wear or any other product that should be insulated. However while it is not used for sleeping bags at all, maybe some jackets, some hand-wear, and lots of boots. I have yet to meet, speak with or otherwise communicate with a person who didn’t have cold feet when the boots had Thinsulate as the insulation. In this regard the boot companies have certainly made significant profits as has 3-M from the sale of these boots. Unfortunately if people have returned the boots because they had cold feet it is not enough for the boot companies to look for a replacement product that does insulate such as Lamilite. A major reason is because the Thinsulate is probably made in China where most of the boot production is and Lamilite is made in USA.

Gore-Tex followed Thinsulate to the market. Here is a product that has demonstrated from the get go that it does not perform as advertised but the advertising by the Gore Company has been so significant that many companies got on board with them because the advertising caused sales of the finished products. Over the years I have heard from probably thousands of people stating that the attributes spoken of by the Gore Company of being a waterproof additive to fabric that also is vapor permeable; or as they at Gore like to say “breathable” is simply not true as an application. Yes, the military has a testing facility where they can demonstrate in a laboratory that some moisture as a vapor will get through the microscopic holes and that it will keep out rain water but in the field application that does not occur. Wearing a rain garment that is constructed from materials that have PTFE film made by any other company that competes with Gore such as Event or any other film from any other of several companies does not perform any better; you will still be as wet inside the garment as if you were wearing a plastic bag. However, Gore and every other company providing a film with the so called attribute of being waterproof and to use their term breathable have made considerable profits based upon in my opinion a lie.

Primaloft is actually a better insulating medium than Thinsulate but it is only marginal.First there was Albany International the original creator of Primaloft batting. I have been in the business of selling polyester fiberfill batting made from chopped staple fiber since 1961 when it was first introduced to the outwear manufacturers and in 1986 or 7, I do not recall the exact year Albany started showing and selling their product to outerwear manufacturers which was also a chopped staple fiberfill. At that time I had a world of knowledge about polyester fiberfill and knew that the continuous filament fiber which started life as Polar Guard was so good that it made the chopped staple product obsolete as it did down. the chopped staple fiberfill had to be quilted in order to use it successfully. If not quilted the first time a garment made with it the product would breakdown and ultimately fall apart. If quilted it would stay together in laundering but each quilt stitch was a cold spot, lots of quilting lots of cold spots. Unfortunately the general public does not have the knowledge I have about this material so when they are bombarded with advertising from a multitude of companies making products using this material because they were give a large advertising budget consumers bought garments with this material as the insulation and in short order found out that it did not perform as advertised. Did they go back to the retailer for a refund or replacement that might perform, not that I am aware of. So there were large profits and of course they went to the military since they developed and patented an existing product that had been around since 1961 who bought into it for a few years. Today I do not know how much the military buys if they do. They are also making this product in China or at least Asia and Europe these days so the in a way have a captive audience and still offer an advertising program so some marketing companies that get their products made in Asia use it. The bottom line here is that these companies are making profits at the expense of the general public who are ignorant of this materials in effectiveness as an insulating medium.

Outlast or Comfortemp were basically one and the same. Both are or in the case of Comfortemp microencapsulated beads of paraffin. These microencapsulated beads of paraffin are quite small. Maybe these capsules are 10 times the size of a grain of salt. That may not be totally accurate but you get the idea. The company that made the Comfortemp product eventually sold out to Outlast. This basic product was developed by NASA, for what purpose I do not really know but I believe it had something to do with paint. If I am wrong so be it as it matters not. The whole concept was putting these beads of paraffin on fabric so the paraffin could absorb the heat from the p[erson wearing the garment which would happen regardless if they were active or not. The heat that is absorbed by the paraffin would then be sent back to the person when they were very still and their heat production is slowed. Over the years since this came on the market about 1990 the Outlast Company has placed their beads of paraffin on yarns that are used to make a variety of products from socks to bedding. How they were able to accomplish this was by I suspect offering the companies that sell these products advertising budgets. The end result is that many consumers are purchasing products that contain these beads of paraffin at a higher price than if the beads of paraffin were in fact not a part of the product. are these consumers getting a better product; NO. They are getting a product that has incorporated the beads of paraffin with no benefit to them, because the beads of paraffin do nothing that is beneficial.

Celliant is a product that I believe when they tell you about it you should be wearing chest waders and have a shovel. Celliant chemicals are earth minerals that they claim are “thermos-reactive” that are as they told me are a catalyst that converts body heat into infrared energy. There are companies that manufacture machines that produce infrared energy that is applied to areas of the body that are painful, like back pain. The infrared heat causes a greater amount of blood as I understand it to flow to the area that the infrared heater is shining on. Celliant”s claim is that these earth minerals do the same thing. Huh! “The active minerals in Celliant are ground into particles that are less than a single micron—100 times thinner than a human hair. Millions of these minerals are extruded into a resin that is loaded directly into the core of our fibers.” They told me they make fiber from these resins which are blended with other fibers and made into yarn which is then woven or knitted into fabric which is than made into garments. When you weat these garments and get a pain some place on your body they the Celliant fibers actively do the same thing as the machine that produces infrared heat. Huh! The Celliant is promoting and I quote; “circulation, increases tissue oxygen levels,enhanced cell vitality and regulates body temperature.” Now you understand why you need the chest waders and shovel! This stuff is not only used for clothing items but also bedding products. Who benefits from the Celliant in all of these products the company that Makes the Celliant and the companies that make the products that incorporate the Celliant as well as the retailer, but not the customer i.e. end item user.

Down also really does not work very well. If it did the down processors and companies the market down filled products would not be jumping on the water-proof down or the down polyester fiber blends. Down was in my opinion made obsolete when polyester fiber for fiberfill purposes was introduced into the market place in about 1960. The basic problem that the fiberfill suppliers had with down garment and sleeping bag manufacturers was its cost. About 1/10 the price of down back then, today down is 100 times more expensive so the down people had to do something to cause consumers to look at spending the money fo down insulated products. It does not matter what they do the down will still absorb moisture regardless of the bath in a water-proofing chemical. These chemicals are no different than what is used to for water repellency on rain wear. As you know it does ware away easily and quickly. So who benefits when someone buys a down garment or sleeping bag the down supplier, down product maker and the retailer, not the consumer. I sell thousands of sleeping bags each year to people who did buy at one time a down bag only to find out how efficient down is at absorbing water.

So there you have it my assessment of some of the “miracle fabrics” that have been put on the market in the last 40/50 years. To those of you who are still not convinced do the research as I have or buy a product made with one of the miracle fabrics and let me know of your success with it or its failure to work, or better yet go back to the company and let them know of its failure.