A warning to kimono fabric users everywhere...
I've read that the most accurate easily done test for fabric is to burn a bit of it.
Silk and wool smell like burning hair, but once you realize it's one or the other, they're pretty easy to tell apart. The burned fabric makes a little black ball that crumbles when you squish it.
I'm not sure what rayon smells like but when it's burnt it makes a grey ash that disappears fast. Any black remains crumble.
Synthetic fibers reek like plastic hell when you burn them, and leave a black ball of various degrees of melty that does not crumble and still stinks.
Okay, fine. I had 6 Kimonos Of Undetermined Fabric, and I carefully cut a seam at the bottom hem of each one and clipped a sliver of fabric from each kimono and liner. Burn, sniff, ew. Burn, sniff, ew. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Only after I was done did I realize that "synthetic" means "could be anything" and who the heck knows what I'd just pulled into my sinuses?!? Of the KOUFs, there were two synthetic (one might have been blended with wool), one rayon (with maybe some synthetic blend -- it really stank), one silk with synthetic liner, and two pure lovely silk kimonos. And one super-unhappy nose.
Perhaps 11 samples (one kimono was unlined) and a few repeats was a bit too much to ask of the ol' olfactory factory. I'm gonna get some Tylenol before bed, and maybe steam my sinuses a bit.
So as far as the burn test is concerned -- use it only if necessary, and limit yourself to just one test a day. Or better yet -- Kids, don't try this at home.
Silk and wool smell like burning hair, but once you realize it's one or the other, they're pretty easy to tell apart. The burned fabric makes a little black ball that crumbles when you squish it.
I'm not sure what rayon smells like but when it's burnt it makes a grey ash that disappears fast. Any black remains crumble.
Synthetic fibers reek like plastic hell when you burn them, and leave a black ball of various degrees of melty that does not crumble and still stinks.
Okay, fine. I had 6 Kimonos Of Undetermined Fabric, and I carefully cut a seam at the bottom hem of each one and clipped a sliver of fabric from each kimono and liner. Burn, sniff, ew. Burn, sniff, ew. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Only after I was done did I realize that "synthetic" means "could be anything" and who the heck knows what I'd just pulled into my sinuses?!? Of the KOUFs, there were two synthetic (one might have been blended with wool), one rayon (with maybe some synthetic blend -- it really stank), one silk with synthetic liner, and two pure lovely silk kimonos. And one super-unhappy nose.
Perhaps 11 samples (one kimono was unlined) and a few repeats was a bit too much to ask of the ol' olfactory factory. I'm gonna get some Tylenol before bed, and maybe steam my sinuses a bit.
So as far as the burn test is concerned -- use it only if necessary, and limit yourself to just one test a day. Or better yet -- Kids, don't try this at home.