KAPOK

Kapok is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae, sometimes called kapok. The kapok fiber used is derived from the seed of the tree. Before polyester fiber began to be widely known by the makers of pillows, they used kapok as stuffing for cushions and mattresses. Currently still found in remote areas, the makers of pillows; bolsters; mattress from kapok material. Currently kapok start abandoned because it has a weakness that is easy to be a place of mites or lice and can cause allergic reactions in certain people, sometimes also can cause asthma. Another disadvantage of kapok is difficult to wash because kapok is easy to absorb water and difficult to dry so easily moldy.

COTTON

Cotton is produced from the cotton plant, the cotton fiber taken is from the flower of the plant itself.

This cotton plant itself has the same family with kapok tree that is Malvaceae but has a different genus that is Gossypium.

Cotton flowers begin to bloom when cotton plants are 35-45 days old, while the time required from the point of flowers to bloom takes 25 days.

Cotton fibers have an empty space in the center of the fiber, usually called lumen. When cotton flowers bloom and dry, the lumen will make the fibers shrink so that the fibers become twisted.

Naturally cotton has hydrophobic properties (can not absorb water), the wax layer on the cotton fiber must be removed first to make the cotton that can absorb water.

The use of cotton as a clothing material has been known since 5000 BC, this fact known from the discovery of pieces of cloth made of cotton in Mexico, predicted to come from that year.

Since then, cotton is widely used for various things such as for fabrics, clothing, stuffing pillows, stuffing bolsters, stuffing dolls, furniture and others.

But in the present era the use of cotton began to decrease, because it has been discovered, how to make polymers / synthetic fibers from plastic. Here we will discuss about fiber from polyester.

POLYESTER STAPLE FIBER

Polyester staple fibers are synthetic fibers that generally made from PET plastic.

This polyester has thermoplastic properties that can be melted by fire and re-formed (recyclable). Generally these fiber have no empty space inside, can be produced as tow fiber or cutted with a certain length (if cutted, called polyester staple fiber).

These polyester fibers are now commonly used as cotton substitutes because they are easy to produce and less expensive than cotton.

It just has weaknesses that are not easy to absorb water (there are also polyester fibers that can absorb water where the manufacturing process is different, generally fiber with denier under 1D or called microfiber is made in such a way that can absorb water (eg microfiber towel).

We can produce polyester staple fiber from recycled PET material, with different denier and cut lengths, sometimes polyester fibers blended together with natural fibers such as cotton.

All materials from polyester fiber can be washed by washing machine and dried by washing machine.

Use warm water and give the softener at the end of the washing process. When drying do not use high temperature so that polyester fiber does not melt, if you want to iron the fiber use low temperature.

All clothes from polyester fiber material can be washed dry.