“I need a napkin that is 100% cotton or a Blend , that is durable, and that doesn’t fade”  This is a request I recently received from a potential customer.  Decades ago cotton was the only option available for napkins and tablecloths.  Today the better polyester products on the market address the short falls of an all cotton product.  I like to call it “Synthetic Cotton” because much of the polyester product today has the look and feel of cotton with the benefits of a synthetic product.

Napkins and tablecloths made from Murata Air Jet Spun polyester offer the following benefits over 100% cotton:

• Consistency – Because polyester wrinkles less and holds color better than all cotton the polyester product will provide a more consistent look.  The best a 100% cotton product will ever look is the day you take it out of the carton.  A blend or 50/50 product begins losing the cotton fiber immediately once the product is laundered and eventually leaves the napkin being a limp piece of polyester.
• Non linting – The better polyester napkins and tablecloths on the market do not lint and leave fibers on clothing.  Cotton by nature loses fiber and does lint.  There are some better cotton products that will lint less but are priced at a tremendous premium.
• Cost to own – The better polyester products will outlast cotton many times over.  Add in the fact that polyester dries faster and there is a nice energy savings as well.  Finally, chemicals such as chlorine bleach do not destroy the fibers of polyester like it does cotton.
• Absorbency – The few places that I still see a cotton napkin generally have so much starch in the napkin that it makes it really hard to say that cotton absorbs better than polyester.  In fact the better polyester on the market today does absorb, oftentimes better than cotton.