wicking

WICKING

What is wicking; it is an action where by liquid will move through any fabric that is a natural fabric to include cotton, wool, silk, or rayon. Wicking or wicking action does not occur when any synthetic fabric is subjected to getting wet with any liquid. Synthetic fiber does not absorb liquid.

The textile manufacturers are and have been for quite some time touting that they have made fabrics, all synthetic that actually do what the natural fibers do; absorb moisture, actually sweat from the human body and move it away from your skin surface. I believe that this action is nothing more than a pipe dream on the part of these people working at these textile companies.

When you are sweating and wearing nothing the moisture condenses on your skin surface. It can then evaporate; this is actually evaporative cooling. The moisture on your skin surface absorbs the heat from you skin and as it evaporates the heat is dissipated therefore, cooling you.

When wearing a garment that is made from a natural fiber material the material absorbs the moisture and the heat and the moisture moves from the inside of the garment to the outside of the garment. The moisture with heat moves to the outside where it is coolerbecause heat moves to cold.

The obvious answer to sheading the sweat and excess heat is to wear as little as possible of a garment that has as open a weave as possible; fishnet material.

Today I read an article about a company that was founded in 1993; Crypton LLC, that is producing a wicking treatment for nylon and polyester apparel. They claim according to the article and I quote; “that moves the moisture away from the wearer”. They show two pictures, one showing a baseball player wearing a closely knitted shirt and a female also wearing a closely knitted shirt, she may be playing soccer, which is made of either polyester or nylon with their additive applied to the fabric. The point being when each of these people is sweating as is the case of every other person involved in a sport that causes one to sweat all of the moisture does not get absorbed on the inside of the fabric which further means it cannot move within the fabric to the outside. I do know that some of the moisture while a vapor will go through the spaces between the yarns. The amount is insignificant.

The textile industry refers to these fabrics as “performance fabrics”, but what do these fabrics perform at? They certainly do not perform the way they are advertised to perform. This company has managed to sell (?) the NFL and some colleges with this chemical in their uniforms. My suspicion is that they may have given these organizations uniforms to evaluate.

I did call the person I was directed too to ask questions, but no response. When you read the background of the prime people running the show at this company it is impressive as far as how accomplished they are in the textile business. However, their background in this area of textiles is nil. What can you expect when you realize they are marketing people? Marketing people permeate the textile industry from fabric sellers to garment sellers. My opinion “they could not sit at a sewing machine and put two flat fabrics together and sew a straight line”.

I do not know how many textile companies or associated companies like this one which is a chemical company tout the same story about moving moisture or managing moisture but they have all successfully not accomplished what they set out to do with the fabric or finish on the fabric. They have successfully sold numerous shirts even though the shirts don’t do what they claim. Just like Gore being a failure as far as their product is concerned but successful at marketing it.

As long as the general public is willing to pay for non-functioning garments the producers of the non-functioning garments will be successful at selling them.