Effects of usage and laundering conditions on performance properties of hometextiles

Knowing the usage performance of the home textile products previously is essential for the enterprises such as hotels and holiday villages which uses these kinds of products generally. The performance properties expected from a product come into prominence for the enterprises which use different products and renew these types of products very fast due to the usage conditions. This research aims to examine the effects of the factors which determines the life time via performing a basic investigation about the products which loose their performance earlier than expected as a result of being widely used and often washed by examining the aspect of the subject. In experimental study, totally eighteen types of products in white color including 7 types of towels and 11 types of bed sheets suitable for hotels were tested. 11 different properties for bed sheets and 10 different properties for all types of towels were tested and evaluated before washing and after after 1, 5, 25 and 50 industrial washing cycles. In experimental study, deformity, dimensional stability, breaking strength, tearing strength, pulling out from a hole and whiteness index were tested in addition to determination of structural parameters of the towels and the bed sheets before and after industrial washing cycles. Additionally, hydrophility and pulling out from a hole tests were performed for the towels. But for the bedsheets, only change in white index values after treatment with perspiration solutions were evaluated. Pilling tendency was investigated only for the bedsheets. The effects of the type of product and the washing cycle on the results were investigated with statistical evaluations and the testing results were compared with the performance properties as mentioned in the related standard.