Mulberry silk duvets – How much do you know about silk colours?

The silk colour is the first thing we see when we open the inspection port of a mulberry silk duvet. We can even deliberate on the quality of the silk directly according to its colour. Depending on the raw material cocoons, the silk production process and the silk used for the duvet, the paint contains many possibilities.

Back to the source, we first look at the colour of the mulberry cocoon, with a pearl luster of white: 

Mulberry silk duvet, and mulberry silk filament, the colour is meticulously divided into four kinds: pearl white, bright white, slightly yellow, and yellow.

Pearl white

Pearl white is the authentic colour of good silk. After de-silking gel, softening treatment, decolourization, and cleaning, the silk is restored to the colour of the cocoon. The colour of this silk changes with the light, as the pearl changes with the light. And the silk is tough and good. However, pearl white silk, the raw material, has extremely high requirements. Whether a single or double palace, only the whole cocoon of silk, can have such quality.

There is a simple way to determine whether the silk colour is pearl white. The colour of the silk and white walls or A4 white paper colour to make a comparison, if and white walls white or white paperwhite is closer, it is bright white, if the difference is obvious, it is pearl white. Of course, if the quilt cover is white, you can also directly compare the silk with the quilt cover.

mulberry silk duvet

 Bright white

Bright white is the addition of fluorescent whitening agent or excessive use of redox agent so that the silk colour appears bright white, this whiteness, then pearl white, to be much whiter. The reason for the use of these agents, because the cocoon raw materials are not good; these cocoons themselves are heavy yellow; according to the normal steps of silk production, the filth on the silk is not clean to deal with.

How should these ordinary rotten cocoons become white? -Hydrogen peroxide (hydrogen peroxide) redox process is the main one. Hydrogen peroxide is a milder redox agent. The reduced product is more stable, giving the product its original whiteness and being friendly to the environment and human body. Currently, all grades of silk need to be disinfected with hydrogen peroxide, remove colour, remove impurities, and then go through the backchannel cleaning again and again. Double Palace and positive cocoon dosage are less to restore the original colour. At the same time, rotten due to heavier pollution, containing more impurities, will need a higher dosage to decolourize and turn white. But excessive hydrogen peroxide, although the whiteness of the fibre to meet production requirements, the silk fibre damage is serious, fibre strength significantly reduced. So rotten cocoons of silk and cotton whiteness for bright white (cocoon quality is different, the dosage is different, whiteness also differs), while the silk strength and toughness will worsen.

slightly yellow

Stock mulberry silk quilt will be affected by the back damp; if preserved more closed, silk will slowly flood a little yellow, but not too obvious, no comparison is difficult to find the difference. On the other hand, the used silk duvet is in contact with the air, absorbs water vapour, sun to the process of natural oxidation; the colour of the silk will be slightly yellow after oxidation. Therefore, if you want to judge the colour of the newly made quilt, it will not be reasonable to use the colour of the stock quilt or the old quilt silk as the standard, pearl white and bright white, compared to the slight yellow whiteness are relatively high.

Yellow

Yellow is the colour of handmade silk; silk contains fine chrysalis shell impurities because the relative natural oxidation of the yellow colour is heavier, so this article is called yellow to and slightly yellow difference. This yellow, also handmade silk sellers say the original white colour, and the mechanism of silk pearl white and bright white to make a comparison, usually claiming that their handmade silk is the natural colour. And the actual situation? The mechanism of silk has been explained earlier; handmade silk is because the colour of silkworm pupae seeped into the silk, can not do as many times as the mechanism of silk thoroughly cleaned to remove colour and impurities. Especially for some cocoon peeling in the basin, it is clear that the morning peeled silk than the afternoon to clean, mainly because the water in the basin is a new change in the morning. The morning is still relatively clean; the afternoon is dirtier.

Pearl white, bright white, slightly yellow and yellow, these four colours contain the colours of mulberry silk that you may meet on the market. We recommend that you choose pearl white when buying and ask the seller which whites before buying; after receiving the quilt, you can follow the method in the article to distinguish the colour and quality of the quilt in a relatively simple way.