POLY COTTON
When a Cotton and Polyester shirt sneak into the bedroom out of wedlock and a Poly Cotton shirt is born, what does the congregation mumble behind Poly Cottons back?
Regardless of what the congregation says, let’s dig into the Poly Cotton phenomenon and learn more about it, why it’s great or not so great, and learn about how it looks, feels, and holds up.
Comfort
Imagine the feeling of a cool breeze whistling through your shirt on a warm summer day. The shirt you are wearing in that memory is most likely a 100% Cotton shirt. That’s because Cotton is extremely good at allowing great airflow. On the other hand, you also know the feeling of your shirt sticking to your back after you jump out of your hot car. That’s the way a hot day feels like in a 100% Polyester shirt. While polyester doesn’t breathe as well as cotton it is a lighter feeling shirt. The question is, is Poly-Cotton the best of both worlds or the worst?
We know that Cotton is more breathable than Polyester and Polyester is lighter than Cotton, but there are a few more factors that affect comfort. Marketing companies have fooled us into thinking that polyester is great at moisture wicking, and Cotton kills, but this isn’t completely true. Moisture wicking is the shirts ability to absorb or draw off liquid by capillary action. Polyester is moisture resistant, but unless you are buying a high end athletic polyester shirt with technology used to help wick the moisture out, you’ll spend your day trying to unstick the shirt from your back. Your sweat is being trapped between the shirt and you. Not a comfortable place to keep moisture. On the flip side, Cotton is good at absorbing small amounts of moisture but once saturated is heavy and wet and takes forever to dry out. Your standard polyester shirt is not good at moisture wicking, and Cotton is only good at it up to a certain point.
As for comfort of feel, Polyester is usually a synthetic fiber made out of polymer materials such as plastic. Although it has come a long way over the years, it is still less comfortable on the skin than cotton.
From the evidence above, we could say that Cotton is more comfortable than Polyester in most situations. The question still remains, what are the benefits of a Poly Cotton blend?
A poly-Cotton shirt will be less comfortable than a 100% Cotton shirt, but more comfortable than a 100% Polyester shirt. The amount of Polyester in the blend will make a big difference here. It will be relatively breathable while maintaining a lightweight feel, and it will do pretty well with moisture. A nice compromise between the two materials. How does the old saying go? Good at many things, but a master of none. Moving on.
Durability
How does this shirt stack up when it comes to durability? This is where things get interesting. Both Cotton and Polyester are durable in very different ways. Polyester is very durable against ripping, stretching, and fading. This means that a polyester shirt would be a good option for working around sharp equipment that tends to snag shirts easily. Polyester is also less susceptible to shrinking, wrinkles, and stains than cotton.
Cotton on the other hand rips easily when snagged, but it is very durable to abrasion. When you rub up against something over and over, cotton will hold up where Polyester will pill up and wear out.
Once again, a Poly-Cotton shirt is a great compromise between rip resistance and abrasion resistance. It’s not the best at either category but does a decent job in both cases.
Style
When it comes to style, a Poly-Cotton shirt looks great. These shirts have a bit of a heathered look to them as the fibers of the shirt are made up of different materials. The cut is generally similar to a Cotton shirt. When it comes to screen printing, Poly-Cotton blended shirts often don’t discharge as well as 100% Cotton shirts, therefore can be used to get a great vintage look when using soft discharge inks.
Cost
Polyester shirts are priced higher than Cotton, although Cotton is usually more expensive to produce depending on the cotton crop on a given year. My guess as to why polyester is priced higher has to do with marketing, at least when it comes to basic polyester shirts. Again if you are buying high tech polyester shirts, that’s a different story. High tech polyester shirts use special weaves and materials to help them perform the way they do.
Not all Poly Cottons are Equal
All of the factors mentioned earlier depend on the blend of the shirt. A 50/50 blend is a lot different than a shirt made up of 90% Cotton/ 10% Polyester. The benefits of Cotton will be greater in the 90/10 option than the 50/50 and so on. Also the quality of shirt will make a difference. If you are comparing an expensive combed ring spun organic cotton shirt to a cheap polyester shirt, it will be as unfair a comparison as a cheap heavy cotton shirt compared to a teched out polyester shirt.
So there you have it. Now you know a little bit more about Poly-Cotton. A great Goldilocks shirt that’s just right in many situations.
Next time you visit the local bar, you have new material to impress your friends with.
Your Welcome.
By the way, I’m wearing a Poly Cotton shirt while I type this up.
Here are a few of our favorite Poly Cotton Picks.
Next Level 6200
Bella Canvas 3650
Gildan G800