The Definitive Guide Of Leggings Fabric

Wonder what kinds of materials you should pick for your leggings? Getting confused on varieties of fabric choices?

Choosing the right fabric is important for performance wear, it will help customers to maximize the workout performance and give them the best wearing experience.

Make sure you take some time on reading the difference between each fabric to see which legging fabric suits the best for your active line!

Different Types of Leggings Fabric

Leggings and Yoga Pants from different brands are made of different fabrics materials. The commonly used materials are:

  1. Nylon/Spandex
  2. Polyester/Spandex
  3. Cotton
  4. Wool

Among all four of them, the most popular ones are Nylon and Polyester blends made leggings. Cotton leggings are due to cotton is not good in stretching and recovery and lack of moisture-wicking. Wool leggings are usually used in cold regions but are also not common material due to the cost and performance.

Nylon, it’s a 100% man-made fiber, it is also called polyamide in some regions. It’s commonly used to make a variety of different types of apparel, especially in activewear.

Recycled Nylon will be made by recycled yarn, it could be made from fishnets or plastic bottles to make the fabric sustainable. Nylon have no basis in organic material. Some people might get familiar with Nylon from Lululemon, Lulu Align was made of 81% Nylon, 19% Lycra.

Hand-felling-wise, Nylon has a silk feel it is smooth and soft. It has strict washing instructions to keep long-lasting, usually could only hand wash or machine wash in a mesh bag.

Spandex/Lycra/ Elastane are the same fiber well used in Activewear/Leggings material, It’s the magic sauce that brings fabric stretchy but also with a good recovery.

So what’s the ideal percentage of spandex that should be in performance fabric? On legging fabrics, we could see different compositions of spandex.

The percentage of spandex will impact the stretchiness of the fabric, the more ration spandex has, the more stretchy the fabric it would be. The common composition for spandex is from 15%-30%. If rare to see leggings use fabric less than 5% of spandex due to lack of stretchiness.

Spandex could also be recycled, ex Spandex brand Creora provide recycled spandex.

Polyester is synthetic fiber created from coal and petroleum. It’s one of the most popular textiles. Knit Polyester it feels soft, the amazing texture feels similar to cotton and it also feels light and breathable.

Polyester has a good sweat-wicking feature and is easier to taking care of. It has high-stretches. The melting point for Polyester is 260 Celsius(For ironing) it’s a good fabric under sun exposure, has strong durability of anti-acid.

The first invention for Nylon was used in stockings but nowadays, Nylon-Spandex is a classic composition for leggings materials.

It is lightweight and soft. The fabric surface will have high glossiness. Nylon is also amazing on water absorption which means it has a good moisture-wicking feature.

We’re usually manufacturing:

Polyester Spandex material is cost-effective, The high stiffness natural will hold the fabric in shape, when it is stretched out for times it will still have an excellent recovery.

For outdoor runners, polyester would be a good choice, it has an amazing sun resistance feature which while working out under the sun, polyester– spandex material won’t fade away the colors or prints.

Polyester could also make heather/Male effect of fabric.

We’re usually manufacturing: 

Nylon VS Polyester

Nylon and Polyester are both well used on leggings fabric,  there are pros and cons for each of them. See the following points about the comparison of 2 fabrics:

Nylon:

  1. Lighter/smooth fabric
  2. High Elastic, Good recovery
  3. Good in Water absorption
  4. Higher Cost
  5. Easy to Pilling

Polyester:

  1. Good for sublimation/digital print
  2. High Stiffness, long-lasting and durable
  3. The melting point of polyester is 260℃, and the ironing temperature can be 180℃
  4. Intolerant to alkali

Which Material is Better and How to Choose?

Yoga: Nylon and Spandex fabric would be a good composition for doing yoga, The naturalness of light and smoothness from nylon fabric will provide good starchiness during yoga exercise.

Workout: On workouts and weight lifting, Polyester / Spandex blend would be good material of doing that, high resistance to sun lights and acid from sweat would keep the garment long-lasting.

Casualwear: Both Nylon or Polyester will be an amazing fabric for daily casual wear. Buttery soft leggings feel like the second skin would be the substitute for jeans.

Still Not Sure What Fabric to Choose For Your Leggings?

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