the.com/viscose
trees disguised as silk, chemically bullied into looking expensive on clearance racks
means A semi-synthetic fiber (and the cloth made from it) created by chemically dissolving wood pulp or cotton cellulose and spinning it back out as soft, silky thread — better known as rayon.
from From the Latin 'viscosus,' meaning 'sticky' or 'full of birdlime' (from 'viscum,' the gluey mistletoe sap once smeared on branches to trap birds). The name fits: the manufacturing process passes through a thick, gummy, syrup-like cellulose solution before it's forced through tiny holes and hardened into fiber. So the word names the goo, not the gown — 'viscose' is literally 'the sticky stuff,' and the fabric just kept the label of the mess it came from.
- origin
- made from dissolved wood pulp cellulose
- aka
- called rayon in the United States
- weakness
- loses up to half its strength when wet
- first faux
- invented to mimic costly silk cheaply
- chemistry
- treated with carbon disulfide, a toxic solvent
lenzing viscose — austrian company producing 30% of world's viscose fiber from sustainably managed forests
aditya birla viscose — india's largest viscose producer, operates in tennessee and rajasthan
sericel viscose production — process used to make dissolving pulp into viscose rayon fabric since 1924
bamboo viscose controversy — forest roundtable 2009 found 90% of bamboo viscose sources in endangered rainforests