Let’s talk about different T-Shirt materials!

First off, we simply don’t believe in covering your body in plastic. There is a tremendous amount of information out there that shows that breathing in and exposing yourself to plastics every day is detrimental to your health. We strongly encourage everyone to not only wear natural fibers but also check your bedding, pillows, towels etc to ensure you are providing yourself the cleanest living possible!

With that out of the way it should be no surprise that we see plastic shirts as a non-starter. Plastic shirts are one of the most common types of shirt you will see, these are the Polyesters. These shirts are often referred to as ‘blends’. Typically they will be a mix of cotton and polyester. Look for things labeled Polyester, blends, tri-blends or Recycled Polyester. A few other common examples of non-natural fibers are Spandex, Nylon, Microfiber, Lycra and Acrylic. There are also ‘semi-natural’ fibers such as Rayon that, while not perfect, are a good substitute for some of the above.

That said, all things in moderation! If you have a pair of spandex leggings you like to wear to the gym go for it. We just don’t want to see you wearing them 24/7 then going home to sleep in even more plastic and breathing in VOCs from your memory foam pillows your entire life. Get yourself some nice cotton clothes, a wool pillow, linen sheets and live a long healthy life!   –End Rant—

 

ONTO THE NATURAL FIBERS!

Here Cotton is king. It is the single most common type of shirt and should be your baseline. There are MANY different types of cotton yarn we will dive into and quality can go from the lowest of the low to the highest of the highs!

Cotton quality all comes down to the fiber, a longer fiber is both stronger AND softer. Shorter cotton (Example Upland Cotton) is more prone to pilling and fraying and will feel rough to the touch. Long-Staple Cotton (Example Pima or Egyptian Cotton) has a much higher tensile strength and will feel very soft and light to the touch.

A common misconception we see almost daily is people think heavier tees mean higher quality.  Typically these heavyweight tees you get from ‘outdoor retailers’ are just using a yarn that is a lot of carded cotton (low end short staple cotton) to give the appearance of heft and quality. In reality they are completely unbreathable and prone to tears. Compare that to a shirt half its weight made of Pima Cotton and you may be surprised to hear the Pima shirt is FAR stronger, more breathable and MUCH softer.

So lets talk cotton types. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up.

Here we have base short-fiber ‘Cotton’. Sometimes called by other names to make it sound fancier. Carded Cotton, Upland Cotton, Short Staple Cotton, Tree Cotton, India Cotton, Levant Cotton. That said there is nothing wrong with these cottons, we just want you to know that this is a low end fiber and if someone is trying to charge you a premium for these you should look elsewhere. These are the bread and butter of the textile industry and make decent clothes at affordable prices.

Now we’ll talk upgrades, we can split this into two types, better base cotton plants OR looming/milling techniques that improve the base quality of the yarn. Cotton plants with natural longer fibers to begin with include Pima Cotton, Egyptian Cotton, Supima Cotton and Sea Island Cotton. These cottons are a premium material and even without upgraded looming techniques will be stronger and softer than those listed above. For manufacturing upgrades the most common things you will see are ‘Combed’, ‘Ring-Spun’, ‘Airlume’ or ‘Compacted’ and we’ll talk about each of these below.

Combed Cotton is a process that ‘combes’ the raw material removing shorter fibers from the batch, this process can take a base cotton and make it a much nicer material. This will be referred to on manufacturer/Pod sites or tags as ‘Combed Cotton’ and is pretty common. Compacted Cotton is a direct upgrade to the combed cotton process. It utilizes a specialized spinning process to produce even stronger and softer yarns from combed cotton. This type of fiber is not as commonly seen but is extremely soft and lightweight!

Ring-Spun is another upgrade you will see fairly often. This is a process that essentially twists long and short cotton fibers together to produce long silky fibers. Airlume cotton (not to be confused with heirloom cotton which is a type of old lineage cotton plant often with natural coloring) is basically a direct upgrade to regular Ring-Spun Cotton.

Typically, the highest tiers of cotton tees you will find are different variants of ‘Combed Ring-Spun’ or ‘Airlume Ring-Spun’ cotton. These shirts are extremely lightweight, breathable, very strong and about the softest tees you can find.

Other fibers that are made from cotton or USUALLY made from cotton (but not typically in Tees so we wont go too deep) are Flannel, Velour, Canvas, Muslin, Velvet, Chino, Chenille, Corduroy, Chambray, Jersey, Denim and Sateen.

When we say ‘Cotton is King’ we mean it, there are other natural fiber shirts out there but they are all pretty uncommon. Because they are uncommon they are often expensive and boutique but usually of a high hand-made quality. Some of the more common types you will come across are Wool, Linen, Cashmere, and Silk, all of which sort of speak for themselves and are solid choices but rare finds for T-Shirts. We’ve also seen (albeit VERY rarely) Jute, Bamboo, Hemp, Flax, Sisal, Coir, Ramie, Alpaca and Mohair, it’s unlikely you will cross paths with these in everyday shopping.

Here at American Lictor our mainstay shirts for our first two years of operation were 'Combed Ring-Spun Cotton'. After our manufacturer decided to start using foreign yarns we switched to a manufacturer producing 'Compacted Ring-Spun Cotton' for one of the lightest, strongest and softest tees we've ever tested.

Thank you for Reading!