Know your fibers
Viscose & lyocell
Viscose, modal, cupro, acetate and lyocell are made from plant cellulose, usually wood pulp, dissolved in chemicals and extruded as fiber. They are neither natural nor synthetic in any useful sense, so we show them as their own tier rather than quietly counting them toward either.
This matters because the most common way a garment is made to look more natural than it is involves putting viscose in the lining and nothing in the headline.
- Source
- Wood pulp
- Our tier
- Separate, not natural
- Weakness
- Weak when wet
How they differ from each other
- Viscose and rayon are the same thing under two names. Drapes well, breathes reasonably, loses up to half its strength when wet, and the conventional process is chemically harsh.
- Modal is a stronger, more stable viscose made from beech. Holds up to washing far better.
- Cupro is made from cotton linter waste. Cool, silk-like, and genuinely the best lining material short of silk itself.
- Lyocell and TENCEL use a closed-loop solvent process that recovers more than 99 percent of what it uses. Materially different from the rest, and we separate it.
- Bamboo on a label almost always means bamboo viscose. It is viscose. We index it as viscose.
Bamboo viscose is viscose. The plant it started as does not survive the process.
Where we land
We do not count cellulosics toward the natural percentage, and we do not treat them as synthetic either. They breathe better than polyester, they biodegrade, and in a lining cupro is a genuinely good outcome. You can see the number and decide for yourself.
Care, which decides how long it lasts
- Wash cool and gently. Viscose is at its weakest wet and can stretch out of shape in the machine.
- Reshape while damp and dry flat. Hanging wet viscose is how a garment grows two sizes.
- Iron on low, on the reverse. The fiber scorches easily.
- Expect some shrinkage on the first wash even when the label says otherwise.
- Lyocell and modal both tolerate normal machine washing far better than standard viscose.
The honest trade-offs
Weak when wet, prone to stretching and shrinking, and conventional viscose production carries real environmental and worker safety problems that the closed-loop processes were developed to solve.