The Science Behind Your Favorite Shirt

Your favorite shirt is basically just twisted hair or melted plastic. It sounds gross,

but textile science is actually insane. Everything starts as raw fiber, which is either

fluff from a plant like cotton or chemical goo like polyester. We take that mess and spin it into

yarn, twisting it thousands of times until it holds together. Then,

massive machines weave or knit those strands into fabric. But fresh fabric looks ugly and grey,

so we boil it in chemicals, dye it, and print designs on it.

Next time you get dressed, remember you are literally wearing a complex science

experiment.