Brushed Fabric

What is brushed fabric? Brushed fabric is a woven cloth whose surface has been raised mechanically: a rotating brush with fine abrasive points pulls the fibre ends up into a short nap, so the face reads soft, matte and warm rather than smooth and cool. It is a finish on a base cloth, not a fibre and not a construction — the same base can be brushed or left unbrushed.

The reason a mill page is worth writing for it: brushing is a decision made on one production route, and everything downstream depends on it. We run brushing in-house on our peachskin family, so the sanding depth, the base cloth and the rest of the finish route stay on one route and one approval. This page is what that route actually changes, what it does not change, and how to write it on an order.

What brushing actually changes

The two lines people get wrong are the last two: brushing softens the cloth and, at the same time, makes pilling more likely. It is not a free improvement.

How it is done on our route

Our peachskin family is a 100% polyester base cloth on waterjet looms, finished by mechanical brushing in-house. The brush is a rotating cylinder with abrasive points; the sanding depth and the direction of the nap are set by the machine and the speed, and the two decide how long the nap stands and how the light sits on it.

Two practical consequences:

• The order of finishing decides the hand. Brushing after calendering and calendering after brushing do not produce the same cloth, and a calendered face pressed afterwards will feel different from a nap brushed over it. Write the route in the order it runs.
• The base cloth is half the result. A heavier base under the brush gives a fuller, warmer face; a lighter base gives a softer but thinner one. That is why the base specification is the first line of the order, not an afterthought.

What to write on the purchase order

1. The base cloth — weave, finished GSM with its tolerance, and finished width.
2. The brushing — the hand you approve, pinned to a hand sample in the finished finish. "Brushed" on its own does not say how soft, how long the nap, or how it wears.
3. The rest of the finish route, in order — including any softener, calendering or coating that comes before or after the brush.
4. The finished measurements — weight and width after the route, not before it.
5. The end use, where pilling or colour matters — because those are the two things a brushed face changes, and they have to be agreed at the sample stage rather than at the delivery.

Common mistakes

• Treating "brushed" as a finish name on its own. It carries no information about the base cloth, the weight or the hand.
• Approving the colour on the greige. The brushed face reads differently, so the shade has to be approved on the brushed cloth.
• Assuming brushed is fleece. They are different constructions and behave differently, and we do not make brushed fleece.
• Expecting pilling resistance to come from brushing. The nap is where the pills start.
• Ordering the greige width. Brushing relaxes the cloth; the finished width is the deliverable.

For how we work with buyers on the peachskin family, the order path and quality control, use the contact page or the China fabric sourcing guide — and read peachskin for the programme this finish belongs to. This page is a technical briefing, not a quote.