Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Mechanically processed bamboo is bamboo fiber produced without chemicals harmful to workers or the environment, maintaining the plant's inherently anti-bacterial properties, with a luxurious softness often compared with cashmere. Using a process similar to the one that produces linen from flax, bamboo fibers are raked and combed into long strands, then drawn out and spun into a silky yarn. The Federal Trade Commission's position is that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber — mechanically processed bamboo — it cannot be called bamboo: advertising or labeling a product as bamboo requires competent and reliable evidence, such as scientific tests, that it is made of actual bamboo fiber. Most “bamboo” textiles have historically been rayon, a man-made fiber created from plant cellulose processed with harsh chemicals.
Is that really bamboo fabric that you are wearing?
When processed into fiber or yarn mechanically-processed bamboo requires no chemicals harmful to workers or the environment and maintains its inherently anti-bacterial properties. Environmentally friendly, bamboo-based fabrics have a luxurious softness often compared with cashmere.
If you make, advertise or sell bamboo-based textiles, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber — often called “mechanically processed bamboo” — it can’t be called bamboo. Indeed, to advertise or label a product as “bamboo,” you need competent and reliable evidence, such as scientific tests and analyses, to show that it’s made of actual bamboo fiber.
The FTC sued several companies in the past for allegedly selling products labeled or advertised as “bamboo” that in reality were made of rayon. Rayon is a man-made fiber created from the cellulose found in plants and trees and processed with harsh chemicals that release hazardous air pollution. Any plant or tree – including bamboo – could be used as the cellulose source, but the fiber that is created is rayon.
Using a process similar to the one that produces linen from flax, bamboo fibers are raked and combed into long strands, thereby preserving their anti-bacterial and anti fungal characteristics. The fibers are then drawn out and spun into a yarn that is silky smooth to the touch.
There are two ways of commercially processing the bamboo plant to create yarn and fabric. The first is a mechanical process, creating what is informally called bamboo linen, and the second, more popular approach, is the chemical process used for producing rayon or viscose fabric.
Learn more about bamboo fiber.
The following article was posted in August 2009 on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
How to Avoid Bamboozling Your Customers
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/how-avoid-bamboozling-your-customers
Marketers looking to provide more environmentally friendly choices to consumers may have heard about bamboo, which has been recognized for its ability to grow quickly with little or no need for pesticides. But when it comes to textile products made from bamboo, that’s not the whole story.
The truth is, most “bamboo” textile products, if not all, really are rayon, which typically is made using environmentally toxic chemicals in a process that emits hazardous pollutants into the air. While different plants, including bamboo, can be used as a source material to create rayon, there’s no trace of the original plant in the finished rayon product.
If you make, advertise or sell bamboo-based textiles, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber — often called “mechanically processed bamboo” — it can’t be called bamboo. Indeed, to advertise or label a product as “bamboo,” you need competent and reliable evidence, such as scientific tests and analyses, to show that it’s made of actual bamboo fiber. Relying on other people’s claims isn’t substantiation. The same standard applies to other claims, like a claim that rayon fibers retain natural antimicrobial properties from the bamboo plant.
If you sell clothing, linens, or other textile products, you’re responsible for making truthful disclosures about the fiber content. If your product isn’t made directly of bamboo fiber — but is a manufactured fiber for which bamboo was the plant source — it should be labeled and advertised using the proper generic name for the fiber, such as rayon, or “rayon made from bamboo.”
Any claims you make about your textile products have to be true and cannot be misleading. As the seller, you must have substantiation for each and every claim — express and implied — that you make.
For More Information For more information on advertising and labeling rayon and other textile products, see Threading Your Way Through the Labeling Requirements Under the Textile and Wool Acts. For guidance on making environmental marketing claims, see Complying with the Environmental Marketing guides. These and other guides for business are at business.ftc.gov.
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The whole term turns on there being two commercial ways to turn the bamboo plant into yarn. The mechanical route treats bamboo the way flax has been treated for millennia: crush, rake, comb and spin the actual fibers of the plant, so the fiber in the cloth is bamboo fiber in the literal sense, with the plant's characteristics carried through. The chemical route dissolves bamboo into cellulose pulp and regenerates it as rayon or viscose — an efficient, popular process, but the output fiber is chemically a new, man-made fiber, and no plant fiber survives it. Same plant at the start; different fiber at the end. That is why the labeling rule follows the process rather than the plantation.
Bamboo's environmental reputation is real but belongs to the crop: it grows quickly with little or no need for pesticides. The FTC's warning is that the crop's reputation does not transfer automatically to a chemically produced fabric, whose process typically uses toxic chemicals and emits hazardous pollutants. Shoppers who want the genuine article should look for fiber content that says bamboo fiber itself rather than rayon made from bamboo, and sellers who want to use the word need test evidence in hand before the claim is printed. The bamboo guide linked on this page covers the fiber and fabric family more widely.
Bamboo fiber made by a mechanical process — the bamboo is raked and combed into long strands, preserving its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal characteristics, then drawn out and spun into yarn. It is informally called bamboo linen, by analogy with linen from flax.
Because the fiber that comes out of the chemical process is rayon, whatever plant supplied the cellulose. Under FTC guidance it must be labeled with its proper generic name — rayon, or rayon made from bamboo — and claims that it retains bamboo's natural antimicrobial properties need substantiation the seller actually holds.
Have competent and reliable evidence for every claim, express and implied; make truthful fiber content disclosures; and not rely on other people's claims as substantiation. The FTC guides linked on this page cover bamboo claims, textile labeling under the Textile and Wool Acts, and environmental marketing claims.