The Pleasant Valley girls became so interested in Miss Travers' talk about textiles and how difficult it is to buy intelligently that they decided to learn to judge materials and to study about adulterations.
How are clothing materials adulterated? Miss James told the girls that there are a number of ways of adulterating materials, and that most women shoppers are so indifferent that manufacturers have been able to adulterate the materials of everyday use. This increases the cost of living, for materials do not wear so long. Miss James says that textiles should be labeled so we may know what we are buying. Some kind of adulterations are honest if the goods are so marked; but, when sold for something they are not, the buyers are fooled. The tests help one to know whether materials are adulterated or not. Let us learn first some of the methods generally used in adulterating, and then some of the simple tests.
Weighting is one method of adulterating. This means that something else has been used beside the material. In cotton and linen material, sizing or starch is pressed in with the rolling in finishing. After washing, this material will be found to be very open in mesh instead of smooth. Notice some of the smooth linen table cloths before they are laundered. Afterwards you will notice they look quite coarse and have lost their smoothness. Sometimes glue or clay or gums are used instead of starch.
Silk is often weighted in the finishing process with sugar and some with dyes and metals. This is because silk has a property which enables it to absorb a great deal of moisture without changing its quality. The manufacturer can buy salts and dyes for less than silk, and so he often uses a large per cent of dye or metal in place of the gum washed out of the silk in manufacture. One can seldom find to-day silks like our grandmothers used to use. This is because people wish cheap silks; the manufacturer cannot produce silks for little money, as the raw fiber is so high; and so he uses other things with silk to weight it.
Fig. 143.—One can sometimes test materials by burning.
Materials are also adulterated by combination with other materials. Did you ever buy a handkerchief marked "pure linen" and discover it was a mixture of cotton and linen? Cotton is also used to adulterate woolen materials, and sometimes silk materials; "pure silk" so called, is often artificial silk.
Adulteration is also practiced when made-over materials or waste is used to cheapen the cost. We learned about this in studying about wool. Wool materials should be labeled so that the purchaser will know. It is not fair to pay the price for an all-new wool material if shoddy and mungo and flocks, which are all old wool and waste, have been used. The per cent of new wool should be told and the price made accordingly.
Silk is sometimes sold as reeled silk when waste from cocoons which is called spun silk has been used for the woof or filling thread.