Lyocell

But in all cases, someone who has an interesting story to tell the denim community at large.

Hello everyone, welcome to Bluecast by Tencel podcast channel.

My name is Tuncay Kılıçkan.

I'm the head of global business development for Denim at Lensi, which is the leading man-made cellulosic fiber producer.

Our Tencel, Lyocell and Modal fibers are being used by leading denim brands and mills in a global scale.

You can learn more about us by visiting our blog Cardinblue and subscribe our e-newsletters and following us in LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Platform X.

And today I'm hosting Patrick Wendt, who is founder of Woptek.

Yeah, yeah

... blends of Tencel, which is a, a-

Yes

... environmentally friendly, uh, brand.

And so we thought, oh, well, okay, we'll try.

And we didn't wanna get, well, we, we are, we're totally domestic.

And well, we thought totally until we learned that some of Tencel was coming from overseas.

We thought it was all from the South.

There's fabrics.

If you go through your shirts, if you have a silky one, it might be made out of something called Lyocell, which is made from cellulose, or-

Really?

... modal is a, is a, basically a, a member of the rayon family, which is made from pulp.

So they will tend to target a Gen Z population.

And what we encourage the company to do is to consider what would be the positive impact on this top line to launch a line of garment that would be made of recycled cotton, recycled polyester, modal, an original Lysol, a sort of sustainable fiber, or for example, become B Corp.

And there's a lot of evidence actually in the consumer sector, especially food, garments, apparel.

There's a lot of research that's been done around this sort of uptick in the premium you can get consumers to pay for a more sustainable product.

Now, this has its limitations, but for the right garment made from the right fiber types, it can be a total game-changer.

So if a garment is made from a natural fiber, such as cotton or linen, or a regenerated fiber such as viscose, Tencel, modal, cupro, or ramie, or it has a decent percentage of one of those fibers alongside some synthetic content, then it should be able to be dyed, or maybe we should be saying overdyed.

So if the original color of the garment is pretty dark, then your options might be limited to refreshing the original color, which can help a tired, faded garment look newer.

If the original fabric has a print, then overdyeing won't disguise the original print, but it should alter its coloration.

Merino wool is good.

Tencel Lyocell, which is a semi-synthetic fabric.

If you look at it from the Tencel Corporation, they follow much stricter processes than if you're looking for just a general Modal or Lyocell or rayon.

In general, those natural fibers are better for sensitive skin for a couple of different reasons.

Will it say lyocell on the tag?

It should.

Yeah, it should say Lysol or if you go into the website of the brand, they should say that they follow like the bamboo Lysol process.

So that should be noted because most of the time you'll just see the word bamboo and that usually just means bamboo rayon or bamboo.

And so how do you move to things that are going to be less risk, but also have comfort and performance, all these things? So we call this space biomaterials.

And if you, you know, some people might know Tencel, right? So Tencel is a biomaterial.

It's a bio-based fiber that is often made from like eucalyptus trees or bamboo, and it's regenerated into a new fiber, but its origins are bio, right? But it's being regenerated into altogether new fiber and then combined with all kinds of things.

You know, it gets combined with wool and cotton, but it also gets combined with polyester and nylon, unfortunately.

Brooklyn Bedding is just great, and not only do they have great mattresses.

I got the deep pocket Tencel sheets.

Oh.

They feel very, very soft.

Hemp is great.

Tencel, which is a new fa- whi- which is wonderful.

I mean, Tencel, um, I'm, I'm working with area rugs.

They feel and look just like silk.

Okay, 'cause silk is out?

And it, they go through a process that is also awful.

Okay.

And, um, so you have Tencel, hemp, linen, bamboo-