Q. A friend and I have a little argument going, so please help us. Is rayon a man-made fabric or is it a natural fabric?
-- Pauline Juenger, of Madison
Q. Let's put it this way: It's kind of like those mind-numbing Certs commercials from the '60s and '70s.
Remember those? Two fashion-model types would argue whether Certs is a breath mint or a candy mint as if it were some kind of serious international dispute. Finally, the big-voiced announcer steps in to say, "It's two, two, two mints in one!"
Well, rayon could be described the same way. Strictly speaking, it's not synthetic because it is made from the natural cellulose you get from specially processed wood pulp. But then this cellulose goes through such extensive processing that nobody in the fiber world call it natural, either.
So, you're both sort of correct and, by giving you a Rayon-for-Dummies summary of the manufacturing process, maybe you can decide between yourselves who is more right. Be forewarned: After you read about everything that goes into it, you may not want to wear it again.
First, the cellulose is placed in caustic soda, pressed between rollers to remove excess liquid and then shredded to produce what is known as "white crumb." This white crumb is then aged and mixed with carbon disulfide, turning it into "yellow crumb," which is then given yet another caustic bath to produce "viscose."
After the viscose is aged and purified, it is sent through a spinneret, which is like a shower head with many small holes. These produce fine filaments of viscose, which are immediately bathed in sulfuric acid to form rayon filaments. These filaments are then stretched and residual chemicals are removed to produce the final product.
So, whose idea was it to go to all this work to turn plant cellulose, of all things, into something you could wear? Turns out they started looking for a way to make it more than 150 years ago as a cheap alternative to silk.
Eventually, Frenchman Hilaire de Charbonnet patented "Chardonnay silk" in 1884 and started commercial production in 1891, but the resulting product was both expensive and --yikes! -- flammable. Finally by early 1920, DuPont acquired the American rights to the process, and started the DuPont Fibersilk Co.
By 1924, the textile industry had settled on the name rayon, so the company renamed its subsidiary the DuPont Rayon Co., and rayon soon became a household word. (The name itself is not a trademark; instead, it was chosen by the National Retail Drygoods Association, perhaps from the French word "rayon" for "ray" to describe the viscose filament coming out of that shower head.)
Today, it is used in everything from blankets, clothing and curtains to feminine hygiene products. But with the spate of cheaper and easier-to-produce synthetic fabrics, Grasim of India now says it is the leading producer, claiming a quarter of the world's market share.
Q. I would like to know why your paper does not put coupon inserts in on holiday weekends. I still grocery shop even though there is a holiday.
-- B. Johnson, of Troy
A. Don't blame us. We'd love to have them in every week, because we get paid for their distribution.
But just when they go in is up to the companies who pay for their insertion -- News America and Valassis. Apparently, their feeling is that on major holidays, most people (unlike you and me) don't spend much time with newspapers and overlook those money-saving ads.
Send your questions to Roger Schlueter, Belleville News-Democrat, 120 S. Illinois St., P.O. Box 427, Belleville, IL 62222-0427 or rschlueter@bnd.com
