Why do clothes pill?

The raw material of clothes is generally fabric, which is made of yarn woven together, and yarn is made of various fibers that are twisted and bonded together. The fiber lengths that make up the yarn should be uniform, and its bonding force is strong, so there is rarely pilling. The pilling you refer to is often that there are some short fibers mixed in the yarn fibers, which run out of the yarn after wearing and curl into balls. Please note that not all clothes will pill. Fabrics that pill are of poor quality, and most of them are chemical fibers. So let’s take a look at why clothes pilling occurs!

Theoretically, the following steps lead to pilling:

① Due to mechanical action, the fibers are stretched to the surface of the fabric and form fuzz;

② The hairs are tangled into balls and connected to the fabric surface through the fixing fibers;

③ During the process of friction, washing, wearing and cleaning, continuous mechanical action causes the balls to fall off.

Any short fiber will pill, and polyester staple fiber is the most serious. This is mainly due to the high strength and bending resistance of polyester, which makes the formed balls difficult to fall off the fibers, and the static electricity of polyester can easily absorb foreign particles and produce pilling.

⑴ If the speed of pilling formation is greater than the speed of pilling shedding, the pills will accumulate on the surface. The balling rate is related to the number, length, cross-section, yarn thickness, fabric structure, etc. of the fibers in the yarn. Any factor that causes the fibers to slide toward the surface of the yarn knot will increase the balling rate.

⑵The longer the staple length, the less pilling. Because fewer fiber ends protrude per unit area, long fibers can also be fixed more firmly to the yarn.

⑶ Coarser fibers are rigid and less likely to pill.

⑷ The cross-section is in the shape of a hexagon and the surface is smooth, which allows the fibers to easily slide to the surface of the fabric, thus causing pilling. The irregular cross section reduces the tendency to pilling.

⑸ Low-strength fiber can increase the speed at which the balls fall off.

⑹High curl can reduce pilling.

⑺ Jet-spun yarn is better than ring-spun yarn. With ring spinning, the longer fibers tend to concentrate in the middle of the yarn, while the shorter ones are on the outside, causing pilling. The air flow is worse than that of ring-spun yarn.

⑻The finer the number, the less likely it is to pill. The exception is polyester/wool blended fabrics. Compared with the same blended fabrics, the finer the yarn and the more polyester on the surface, the easier it is to pilling.

⑼ High twist can make the yarn tighter, with fewer protruding fibers, reducing the mobility of the fibers and thus reducing pilling.

⑽In blended fabrics, the higher the polyester content, the easier it is to pilling.

⑾ Yarn with less hairiness is less likely to pill.

⑿ Fabrics made of single-ply yarn are more prone to pilling than fabrics made of double-ply yarn.

⒀Knitted fabrics are more prone to pilling than woven fabrics due to the large exposed yarn surface area.

⒁ Compared with twill fabrics, plain fabrics are less likely to pilling because of their large number of interlacing and short crossing length.

⒂Light and thin fabrics containing a small amount of low-grade cotton are more likely to pilling than thick and heavy fabrics.