Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. is a professional underwear sourcing & supply-chain management company based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China. Founded by Will Lin, who has worked in the apparel trade since 2004, the company has been exporting since 2009 and was incorporated in Xiamen in 2013. It runs its own liaison office in Jinjiang and works with a network of BSCI & OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified partner factories to serve retailers and brands across Europe, the US and Australia.
What Is Milk Silk Fabric?
Milk Silk is a milk fiber fabric, also known as milk textiles or dairy textiles. It is made from milk protein fiber and is soft, smooth, breathable and comfortable to the touch.
The raw material of milk shreds is protein, usually from whey protein extracted from milk. This protein is extracted, spun and processed into silk-like fibers that are made into fabrics. It contains 17 kinds of amino acids, which have the effect of moisturizing and nourishing the skin.
Milk silk fabric has a light, soft and smooth texture, is comfortable to wear, has good breathability, can conduct moisture, and gives people a refreshing feeling.
In addition, milk silk fabric also has natural antibacterial function, which can inhibit bacteria, mold, etc. that are harmful to the skin.
Production of milk silk fabric
- Get milk. In most cases, the milk used to make shredded milk is waste milk;
- Skim to remove fat and dehydrate. The end result is similar in appearance to milk protein powder;
- The milk powder is dissolved and purified to remove anything that is not casein.
The production process will vary depending on the method used:
A. The original production process of casein fabric requires casein powder to be immersed in alkali to make a solution, and then passed through the spinneret; after passing through the spinneret, the solution is immersed in sulfuric acid to remove the alkali, and then the resulting fiber is stretched and spun into yarn and tanned with aluminum salts and formaldehyde to turn them into usable textile yarn. The problem with this production method is that formaldehyde is toxic, and a variety of other chemicals are used in the process that can also be harmful to workers, the environment, or the end consumer.
B. The modern method of producing casein fibers involves the chemical grafting of pure casein onto acrylonitrile in a graft copolymerization process. Invented in Japan, China now uses a similar method. This process does not require the use of formaldehyde or any of the toxic chemicals used in the original casein fiber production method. This modern approach is more efficient and probably safer, but it still has its fair share of problems.
According to the current technology, the base of milk silk fabric is acrylic fiber, which actually accounts for 60-70%. Therefore, even regular milk silk products are not pure milk fiber products.
Properties and Advantages of Milk Silk Fabric
By understanding the production of our milk silk fabric, we can know that it has the following advantages:
Physical Properties
Milk silk is different from natural fibers such as cotton, linen, silk and wool, and also different from chemical fibers such as nylon, acrylic, polyester and polypropylene. Therefore, its performance is between natural fibers and synthetic fibers.
Green and Environmental Protection
No formaldehyde or AZO additives or raw materials are used, and the formaldehyde content of the fiber is zero; it is rich in 18 kinds of amino acids that are beneficial to the human body, which can promote human cell metabolism, prevent skin aging and itching, and nourish the skin; it has natural moisturizing factors, so it can Maintain skin moisture content, make skin soft and smooth, reduce wrinkles, have broad-spectrum antibacterial function, strong durability, natural antibacterial function of more than 99%, and antibacterial rate of more than 80%.
Fiber Comfort
It has a cashmere-like feel. Its single filaments are thin and light in specific gravity. Its breaking elongation, curl elasticity, and curl recovery rate are closest to those of cashmere and wool. The fibers are puffy and soft, and the touch is as soft, comfortable, and smooth as cashmere; the fibers are white, with silky natural luster, elegant appearance, sun fastness and perspiration fastness of level 4~3, and it is easy to dry.
Moisture absorption & moisture conductivity
The cross-section of milk protein fiber is an irregular round shape, filled with gaps and many grooves in the longitudinal direction. The protein molecules are distributed on the surface of the fiber. It contains natural protein moisturizing factors and a large number of hydrophilic groups, which can quickly absorb human sweat and pass through the grooves. The groove is quickly introduced into the air and dispersed, keeping people’s skin dry all the time. The anti-pilling and pilling properties reach level 3~4.
Endothermic and exothermic
The three-dimensional porous microporous structure of the fiber and the groove structure on the longitudinal surface determine that the fiber has the characteristics of being warm in winter and cool in summer: in summer, it is made into a light and thin fabric, which can quickly absorb moisture and sweat emitted by the skin, and quickly diffuse into the air, keeping the skin Dry and breathable; made of thick fabric in winter, the micropores absorb the heat emitted from the body, effectively blocking air circulation, preventing the intrusion of cold air, and being light and warm.
Other features
Dyeing at normal temperature and pressure produces bright, soft and shiny colors with high dye uptake rate and color fastness of level 4~. The product still maintains its original performance after dyeing and has excellent safety for consumption; it has natural antibacterial function. Compared with wool and cashmere, it is more resistant to mildew and moth, has higher strength, is durable and washable, and is easy to store; it can still maintain the product’s highly durable and non-deforming properties after washing.
Application of milk silk fabric
Milk fiber is rich in a variety of amino acids and has the characteristics of moisturizing and nourishing skin, antibacterial, light and soft. It is stronger than cotton and silk, and is moth-proof and mildew-proof. It also has the function of nourishing and nourishing skin that they do not have. It has a natural luster, so it is an excellent fabric for high-end underwear, underwear, pajamas, T-shirts, shirts, and other intimate clothing, as well as skin-friendly bedding, towels, and other textiles.
Of course, according to the composition ratio of milk, only 2.9% of the protein can be used as the raw material for making milk fiber. Therefore, from the perspective of production technology and actual raw material acquisition, 100% milk fiber fabrics are expensive and extremely rare and rare, unless some people with special allergies may have to choose!
Generally speaking, even if acrylic is used as the base, the milk silk produced by grafting technology is not essentially a natural cellulose fiber or a regenerated cellulose fiber, but a semi-synthetic fiber. Even so, it is always different from other fibers. Blended or interwoven to meet the functional needs of the market!
Judging from the world’s consumption of clothing fabrics, the proportion of chemical fibers consumed by people is much greater than that of natural fibers, because the production of natural fibers is limited by natural factors such as land, climate, and environment. With the development of science and technology, in recent years, new natural fibers made from plants and animals have become more and more popular. Clothing fabrics that are easily accepted by people are fibers extracted from natural substances that are “ecologically based and fashion-oriented”. “Ecological” refers to the environmental friendliness of clothing during processing and the care of the human body when worn; “fashion” refers to visual requirements such as style, color, and pattern. Corn fiber, bamboo fiber and milk fiber that have appeared in recent years meet the requirements of “ecology” and “fashion”.
More and more people in the industry realize that the competition in clothing has focused on the leadership of fabrics. Whoever has new and unique fabrics will have selling points and attractiveness, and the market trend of its goods will rise all the way.
Unitex underwear supplier is committed to the production of underwear of various high-quality fabrics to meet people’s pursuit of comfort, health care and fashion in underwear. We look forward to cooperating with you.
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner