Hello, my name is Tatiana. In case you do not know, I work in product development here at
Creator Warehouse and today we'll be looking into fabric testing, which is great because I heard
that some of the all float paint beeps have been commenting saying that you want a more deep dive
into what goes into product testing, which is amazing because that is my favorite part
and ask and you shall receive. We will be going behind the seams into our clothing and seeing how
the standardized tests can relate to real-world performance. We'll be looking into a variety
things such as color facets of different fabrics, abrasion testing, some water repellency testing,
some laundry testing, as well as some weight using a GSM color. So for some of the standardized tests
that we do, we look at things like color facets to laundering, we look at things like abrasion
resistance, we look at everything in regards to color facets to lighting, changing in all
these different areas. And one of the things that we also look at is, for example, such as the
called favorites, Uncle Lina's hoodie, which is getting a little bit of a refreshment, doing it in
a different kind of construction for future releases, hopefully, is we look at something like ATC
8-2016, which you can see is color facets to crocking, or you can look at it as in
color transfer from a lighter colored fabric. So when looking at the actual tests, you can see
that with these white strips, which is also called crocking cloth, is evaluated up against what's
called a crock meter. When you are doing that, essentially, you are rubbing a, doing a rubbing
motion against the fabric in order to see if there's any color transfer, either in dry conditions,
so that would just be a standard condition, as well as in wet conditions that it's wetted with
still water. If any color transfer has occurred, you would evaluate it on a grayscale method.
So essentially, it is like a piece of cardstock that has a variety of different grays that have
a different opacity, and it is assigned a number. That test technician would then go to something
like a light box with a standard lighting condition, and then evaluate the crocking cloth
that had any color transfer that occurred to the standard grays that are listed out in a 1-5 scale.
So 5 would be the best, therefore, you would see practically nothing on the crocking cloth,
or it'd be a 1 where you would see a significant change. Then once we get that test, we are able
to evaluate whether or not it meets the requirement, and we will continue, or we will ask our supplier
and say, hey, we definitely need to make this better, because we don't want any color transfer.
Last thing you want is to sit on a white couch, and for you to come up, and there to be a color
transfer that occurred. So the next one that I will be talking about is also AATCC 61 version
2013. So essentially what this is is color fastest washing. When you look at it, how it's done is
you take the fabric and you sew it with a multi-fiber strip. So this uses acetate, a cotton,
nylon, polyester, acrylic, and the last one is like a worsted wool. So that would essentially
encompass, for example, any other trims or anything that is on a garment, or when you bundle
everything up to throw in the wash, obviously they're all going to have different fiber contents.
The cool thing about this machine is essentially you would add in a metal cup with the test
specimen with the multi-fiber strip, as well as 50 steel balls, in order to simulate a
tumbling cycle, and you would add the washing detergent, and therefore it would spin a lot of
time, and then you would dry the fabric specimen with the multi-fiber strip, and then you would
evaluate that multi-fiber strip to see if there was any color change that occurred. Within this,
again, you would be using the same grayscale in order to evaluate, but instead of using it with
just a standard white cloth, like the crocking cloth, you would use it for the multi-fiber strip
of all the different fiber contents. So each fiber would be given a scale within that, and again,
using that grayscale with the different opacities, you would then evaluate the different fiber strips.
Another way that we look into fabrics is by, for example, looking at standard tests and seeing how
they would relate to real-world scenarios. For example, when looking at the backpack, we are
looking at a variety of different construction types when considering the double layer that we
will add for future backpack iterations. So we looked at a variety of different sample constructions,
for example, such as when looking at bonding with a different adhesive, as well as some
stitched ones that are stitched with self or stitched with other different types of fabrics
to see what would behave the best. Now, when looking at that in comparison to different
testing standards, one of the tests that we used was ASTM D4966-12 version 2016, which is
essentially a bracing resistance test, where you would use 12 kilopascals of pressure,
and the endpoint would be 10,000 rubs. So when looking at that, when you're looking at the
actual test machine, has the weights that are applied and a standard cloth on the bottom,
and your tested specimen on top, which is then rubbed in a Lissa Jules pattern in order to get
the overall rubbing on the test specimen, which you would then evaluate again on a graded scale.
And I always like to bring in the test specimens as well to see how much has been abraded through.
So sometimes tests happen randomly right out of our office, especially when I get in a lot of new
development fabrics. I like to get my hands right in there to make sure that it's an offering that
we want to develop and bring to market. So a lot of times I will do a water repellency test, which
is essentially just using a good old bottle of H2O and spraying it on the fabric to see whether
or not it starts to beat off or whether it starts to absorb in the actual fabric. So for example,
this is a fabric that we are looking at developing that may be for future launches. So this is a
nylon base with a DWR, which is a durable water repellency coating on the face. The membrane is
a E-PTFE, which is an expanded polytetra floral ethylene membrane that is used for a variety
of properties such as water repellency and thermal resistance, and then also a nylon meshback. So
something like that is something that we would do in office. In comparison to a standard test,
when I would send it off for third-party testing, we would do AATCC-22, which is a water repellency
test where the fabric is laid at an angle, and then you would spray a certain amount of water
and based off of whether or not it starts to beat off the fabric or start to absorb,
again, it'd be rated on a scale. And then obviously, the more it beats off, the better it performs,
the less you probably need to reevaluate your coating. Or when measuring how a fabric resists
water, you could look at something like a hydrostatic test where we would use something like AATCC-127,
which is essentially where you would take a piece of fabric and fit it over a water column,
and you would measure based off of the water pressure how much it takes in order for it to
actually leak and rupture the fabric. Another way that we do in-house office tests is through
laundry testing. So a lot of times when we get proto samples or any quality samples in general,
we like to do a good old-fashioned laundry test. So here is an example of another thing that hopefully
you will find soon on LTCSore.com. And with that, we do a very standard washing test, the same as
that would react in any home. And then afterwards, we take those key points in order to measure to
see things like shrinkage and how it behaves, whether or not it starts to spill, whether there's
any color fastest changes. And we would obviously evaluate that and look into it further to make
sure that it wouldn't happen for anything that gets put into production. So here, next to the
engineering area, we actually have our handy-dandy washer and dryer. So usually, I'm running up and
down those steps in order to get my steps in and work these bad boys, whether we do something like
three washes and three dries or whatever the team is looking for. Since I have one here,
I'll show you how it works, which you should obviously already know how to wash and dry,
but you know what? You never know. And we as our standard mothers gain laundry detergent that has
a synthetic smell that leaves everyone wondering, why the hell are you doing this? Because usually,
when we're running it for long periods of time, over and over again, it just absolutely, it has
everything smelling like fresh laundry. So another thing that's super interesting with laundry,
get a load of this, CGSB, which is the Canadian General Standards Board, has actually put out a
disclaimer for their home laundering conditions saying that they can't necessarily keep totally
up to date with the washer and dryer industry, because essentially what they're doing is they
care more about the effectiveness of washing and drying and not necessarily keeping your clothes in
mint condition and keeping them for long periods of time. Therefore, they always recommend, and so
do I, to follow the care instructions because all of this high heat and high with washing as well as
drying and that really fast tumbling process is essentially just deteriorating your clothes.
So that's one key laundry tip is to always follow the care instructions. Lastly, another thing that
we do in house a lot is getting the weight of a garment. So this, for example, is a GSM cutter,
and GSM stands for grams per square meter, which can be used to calculate density. We put this
little rubber plate in behind, we put it on top, and when you can see it actually has a
little blade in there in order to cut it, and this will create a perfect circular diameter of 113
millimeters. So hold it down, punch through it, peel it away, and there you go. You would take
this and basically weigh it, and that would give you an accurate GSM, at least preliminary. Of course,
we do a lot of third-party testing as well to confirm because you never know because this is
not necessarily, of course, standardized conditions. Therefore, it's always good to do that preliminary
first and then always check again beforehand. That is it for testing. We are always looking
towards innovating and adapting and having new standards going forward in order to match any
real-world scenarios and create the best, most long-lasting products, and hopefully you learned
a little bit more about fabric testing and maybe a laundry chip in there too.