Cotton or nylon?

by Geraden

One of the reasons with which I am very familiar for hating tights is a dislike of nylon. The grounds for this dislike are that it is

• not a natural fibre
• unhealthy
• hard to the touch
• cold to wear
• hot and sticky

Nothing can be done about the first – nylon is a man-made fibre, but if we wore only natural fibres, there would be not much left in our wardrobes. And if we eliminate the contradictory properties attributed to nylon i.e. that it is both cold and hot, we are not left with much.

Hard to the touch really depends on the fabric being discussed – whether it is a pair of cheap run-resist tights or Wolford's Fatals. One is harsh, the other is wonderfully soft.

The most serious reasons given for not wearing tights are the ones to do with health, which is connected with the allegation that nylon is hot and sticky.

The unhealthiness is to do with fungal infections, which thrive in moist warm conditions. This is a problem that for anatomical reasons affects mostly women. Should we blame nylon tights for such infections? Obviously they do not cause the infections as such, but is it true that they create the conditions in which such infections thrive?

Well, no.

Cotton absorbs moisture quickly from the body, and holds it in its fibres. Nylon does not absorb moisture. Moisture cannot penetrate the nylon fibres and stays on the outside of each fibre. It is then drawn along the fibre by surface tension, a process which is known as wicking. Because the moisture is on the fibres rather than in them, it is able to evaporate more easily, which gets rid of the moisture and also dissipates heat. So we can see that cotton on its own is more likely than nylon on its own to provide the warm moist environment that favours yeast and fungus.

It is not quite so simple as that in real life, however. If tights are worn over cotton panties, the situation quickly becomes much worse. The elasticity of the tights ensures that the moist cotton is held in close proximity to the skin. The nylon is unable to wick away moisture, because that is trapped in the cotton layer. Cotton plus nylon is warmer than cotton alone, so you have the ideal conditions for fungal infections to thrive. To this extent tights are unhealthy, but only because you are wearing a pair of cotton panties under them.

It is healthier to wear cotton panties and no tights. It is even healthier still to wear tights and no panties. Before we have people up in arms over this, remember that tights were invented to do away with panties, and remember too that nowadays, nearly all tights have lined crotch panels for modesty as well as for better fit. Of course the lining is usually cotton, but that amount of cotton should not be enough to cause a problem.

links: technorati