challenges when trying to clean with normal water based cleaning methods as the water cannot penetrate in to wash the oils out. The other synthetic fibres have varying degrees of moisture and oil absorbency and therefore have a variety of characteristics in relationship to soiling and cleaning. Can you imagine a pair of jeans made from polyester? It’s just wrong isn’t it? This is because jeans are traditionally made from cotton and being a cellulose fibre it has the absorption and breathability that makes it comfortable on our skin. Polyester, nylon, acrylic and polypropylene are the four main synthetic fibres and while these are good hard wearing fibres, they can tend to have that plastic like feel. But there are variations on these fibres such as ‘microfibre’. This is simply, very thin polyester fibres. Microfibre is the fibre used in the suede –look fabrics that have been very popular over the last 10 years or so. There are of course a number of manufacturers of ‘faux suede’ fabrics and of course some of these can be very good, but some can have quite a few problems. Polyester, especially microfibre, is a very popular synthetic fibre for upholstery, it cleans well, wears well and is resistant to sun damage, fading and staining, but keep in mind that microfibre cleaning cloths are made from polyester and these are very good at cleaning because they trap and hold the soiling. Microfibre upholstery can be very similar in that they are good at cleaning our arms and legs and holding in the soiling. But at least they are usually easy to clean with the right cleaning methods and detergents. So if you don’t like the synthetic feel, you are left with the cellulose or protein fibres. Wool and silk, our protein fibres, can give luxury and elegance to any furnishings, but silk especially, is quite easily damaged both chemically and physically and would not be a great choice for a holiday unit. Wool can be great and is used where flame resistance is a prime
concern, so fabric aircraft seats will invariably be made from wool fibres, but for some reason we rarely find wool in traditional furniture upholstery. This is probably due to the fact that wool can have a ‘prickle’ feel to it on bare skin unless they use very fine Merino wool, and this can be a bit costly. The cellulose fibres, cotton, linen and occasionally jute, will often be chosen because of their feel and breathability. They feel cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They can be dyed in a range of colours and woven into a wide variety of styles. They can be blended or woven together with some of the synthetic fibres, most commonly polyester, to give the durability and moisture resistance of the synthetic fibres, yet retain a lot of the breathability of the cellulose fibres. The biggest problem with cellulose fibres are that they are basically made from dead plants, if they are continually in a humid environment and are subject to soiling, the bacteria and moulds can have a field day. Bacteria and mould just see it as food and the fabric can deteriorate in high humid environments. They are very absorbent fibres and soak in most spills and soiling, but because of their ability to absorb moisture they are usually quite easily cleaned. One of the biggest problems is they do tend to fade quite quickly compared to other fibres and colour runs between different fibres can create some issues in multicoloured fabrics. Some dyes used in cellulose fibres have been known to change colour when cleaned due to chemical changes caused by soiling and exposure to the air. So there is really no magic bullet here. No fabric or fibre is going to be perfect in every situation. Some are going to be easily cleaned and some are not. Speaking of cleaning, rarely will care labels provide any real valuable information. They don’t give you fibre content information and generally provide little in the way of help when it comes to cleaning methods. Some will say ‘hot water extraction’ can be used, while others may say ‘dry clean only’.
If you see a fabric label on a lounge with a ‘dry clean only’, then it might be a good idea to avoid that fabric. It’s a bit hard to drag a lounge suite down to your local dry cleaner, and even if you did, then your sofa is not going to fit in their dry cleaning machine. On-site dry cleaning is available, but this involves the use of volatile petrochemical solvents that are not contained within a sealed environment like at your local dry cleaners and you risk having to evacuate your entire building when highly toxic, flammable solvent fumes waft through your air conditioning system. So choosing a fabric can be difficult if you are trying to meet all of your décor needs and still keep it realistically cleanable. If you are about to select some fabric or leather, it might pay to get a second opinion from the person who is going to have to maintain it. If your in-house maintenance and cleaning personnel are not familiar with upholstery cleaning and maintenance, then it might be an idea to outsource this task to a professional upholstery cleaner or get some training for your own staff. Hippies have a very simple solution when it comes to the maintenance of upholstery. Don’t have furniture and just make everyone sit on the floor. That solves a lot of problems. Next issue I’ll explain the Higg’s Boson. No I won’t, just kidding. Cheers Col Nation. Col Nation is the owner of ABBsolve Services, (www.abbsolve.com.au) a specialist upholstery cleaning service on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He also runs Nation Training (www.nationtraining.com.au) which provides specialised training in the field of carpet and upholstery maintenance. Nation Training provides training in Australia and New Zealand for the WoolSafe Organisation. Colin was the author of the draft of the Australian Standard for upholstery cleaning which was published as A/NZ Standard 4849.1 in 2003 and this year was elected President of the Individual Cleaners Association of Australia and New Zealand (ICAN).
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