Fabric Testing
The best products always start with high-quality materials. One can always create a great product with great fabric, but you can NEVER create a great product with a fabric of poor quality, no matter how great the construction and design is.
So how do you know if a fabric is of great quality? Can you rely on the word from the mill, importer or fabric rep? In short, no. They give valuable opinions and guidance, but ultimately it is your line and you must only rely on your own testing to truly be able to stand behind a fabric's quality.
There are multiple ways to go about testing the quality of the fabric.
The at-home method. This is the easiest, most informal method of testing and certainly does not qualify as any industry-standard official testing, but in a pinch, it can be helpful. This is for the do-it-yourselfers out there who simply want to get a general idea of shrinkage, pilling, and torquing.
Cut a piece of fabric that is at least 15" x 15"
With a Sharpie, draw a 10" x 10" square along the length/cross-grain of the fabric. Draw an arrow that indicates the length grain (parallel to the selvage)
Wash the fabric as many times as you wish to test. This can be according to the mill's directions or you can wash it how you prefer to test the washing instructions.
Remeasure the swatch after drying and pressing. Check it to see if it shrunk in either direction, lost color, is pilling, or is the square at an angle.
Contact a Textile Testing Lab to do testing. This is, of course, recommended and does require some time and money to do this. The benefits are overwhelming in importance as you can have a certified test result in all of the following aspects:
Colorfastness- Colorfastness to laundering, crocking, light, non-chlorine beach, perspiration, etc.
Physical Properties- Strength, pilling resistance, abrasion resistance, dimensional stability, gas permeability, moisture permeability, static test, etc.
Chemical Properties- pH, formaldehyde, lead content, banned azo colorants and ozone-depleting chemicals, heavy metal, pesticide residues, and fungicides, etc.
Fiber Composition- Fiber qualitative analysis, fiber quantitative analysis, garment composition analysis, moisture content, etc.
Functional Testing- Water resistance test, water absorption, antistatic test, UV test, antibacterial, and more.
Ask your mill for certifications for their fabrics. A mill will often have third-party testing that you can trust. Look up the testing lab, and make sure they are testing using the standards from the following list:
ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials)
ISO (International Organization for Standardization)
USCPSC (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)
AATCC (American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists)