Plant Based Yarns
You may have heard of most of the plants used to make these yarns and some may surprise you. I'm sure you're familiar with cotton, flax or linen, and hemp. But did you know, yarn has been made out of plants like bamboo, soy, corn, eucalyptus, bananas, nettles, and even seaweed! The softness and texture vary between each kind of yarn but all of them have one thing in common: plants are the basic building blocks. No animals or their byproducts were used in the making of them.
Plant based yarns can be either natural or semi-synthetic. Natural yarns are made directly from plants using minimal mechanical processing and retain much of the natural characteristics found in their progenitors, for instance, being hypoallergenic and/or antimicrobial. On the other hand, semi-synthetic plant-based yarns take plant materials and process them using a multi-step approach and chemically break it down, similar to how paper is manufactured, but instead create long fibers used in yarns and threads. Although not yet perfect for the environment, new ways of producing semi-synthetic plant based yarns are discovered and utilized all the time. This desire to be green has had the greatest impact in driving scientists to look for safer and cleaner techniques.