About Silk

There are how many kinds of silkworms?

The structure of cocoon.

The main types of silk fabrics.

Is silk fabric softer the better?

We talk about silk, mainly refer to mulberry silk, it is produced by mulberry silkworm, but except mulberry silkworm, there also tussah, cassava silkworm, camphor silkworm and willow silkworm. It is called by the different leaves they eat. Only the mulberry silkworm is reared in captivity.

Everybody knows the cocoon has two main parts-the shell and the pupa, but actually the cocoon consists of 5 main parts, they are cocoon clothing, cocoon shell, pupa lining, pupa and molting. The cocoon clothing is the outside layer delicate and messy silk filament, it can't be reeled to silk, but it can be used for spun silk, about 2% of cocoon weight; The cocoon shell which can be reeled to silk filament, about 50% cocoon weight; The pupa lining, which about 2.5% cocoon weight, is same to cocoon clothing, also can't be reeled to silk filament; The pupa is about 45% cocoon weight; The molt almost weight nothing.

Now you know only cocoon shell which about 50% cocoon weight can be reeled to silk filament, but is all silk shell can be reeled to silk filament? the answer is no, actually the silk shell consists of silk filament and other material, Other material include fats, salts, and wax.

Generally, one cocoon produces between 1,000 and 2,000 feet of silk filament, made essentially of two material. The fiber, called fibroin, makes up between 75 and 90%, and sericin, the gum secreted by the caterpillar to glue the fiber into a cocoon, comprises about 10-25% of silk. The finished silk fabric need to remove some percent of silk sericin, so the silk fabric becomes soft and shining.

The leftover silk may include cocoon clothing, pupa lining, the brushed ends or broken cocoons. This shorter staple silk may be used for spinning silk. The quality of spun silk is slightly inferior to reeled silk in that it is a bit weaker and it tends to become fuzzy. The waste material from the spun silk can also be used for making "waste silk" or "silk noil."

There are more than 40 types of different silk fabric, for most people, when they talk about silk, they mainly refer to silk charmeuse or silk satin, but the silk crepe de chine, stretch silk, silk georgette and silk chiffon also very popular, each type of silk fabric has its pros and cons.

• Silk Charmeuse ( Satin ) : As its name, it is one face glory and another face dull, it is very soft, smooth and the color is so vivid, it is very good for bedding, sleepwear, scarf, etc, but it very ease wrinkle and it is also very ease split in light momme weight.
• Stretch Silk: Normally it is 94% mulberry silk blended with 6% spandex, with 6% spandex, it is much stronger than pure silk, it also can be stretched some, so it is good for some tight fit clothing like dress.
• Silk Crepe De Chine: Both sides similar to the dull side of silk charmeuse, so it not so smooth as the charmeuse glory side. But it not so ease wrinkle as silk charmeuse and it with better drapability. It is good for shirt and pants.
• Silk Georgette: Both sides is same, it even rougher than silk crepe de chine, but it with better anti-wrinkle and better drapability.
• Silk Chiffon: Same to normal chiffon, it is very light and transparant.

Silk has many merits, it very soft, it very drape, it very smooth, it good at wicking, it very healthy, when you wear it, it just like nothing. But is silk softer better. There are two main factors affect the softness of silk:

• The Sericin: which is the gum secreted by the caterpillar to glue the fiber into a cocoon, the pure silk need to remove the sericin, the silk with less the sericin, it softer, but it also become weaker, so we need to make compromise between the softness and the lifetime, so for different purpose, it treated in different, for heavy duty, it tend to be harder, for light use, it tend to be softer. That's why the scarves always very soft.
• The Thickness of Fabric: It is common sense, even now the higher momme weight become more and more popular, but some people still prefer the light weight softness. That's why we provide also the light weight silk.