Spandex- Catastrophic Yarn- Ringing the First Alarm Bell.

Spandex is product  of isocyanides  ( used for making of pesticides ) and polymerized with glycol makes spandex. Invented sometime in 1959 and for a very long time DuPont could not successfully market it, because of its textile processing limitations, whether in spinning or dyeing. However, it did manage to get the yarn into the knitting machines to make some fancy apparel. Despite its retraction quality of 500% and rubbery feeling, the product somehow managed to find some application in textile industry, but lately it has become a Fashion Statement. Let us discuss now, how spandex is overtly and covertly the worst yarns ever developed in textile and should have been thrown out of apparel applications. Yes, it could have gone into rubber applications in other industries, but DuPont with its obsession with textiles never looked beyond textiles.

Spandex or Elastene or Lycra, the more popular name and trade mark owned by DuPont is an example of how a large population can be fooled in believing that Rubber like product is clothing fancy and has many other creasing advantages. Go in to buy a nice Italian suit and it will show the composition of atleast 2 to 3% of Lycra and therefore obscenely priced and claimed as Lycra giving quality of drape and crease. Now, if you are a textile engineer, then you have to be a fool to believe that Lycra has any such quality.  .  As a textile engineer, whenever I see spandex yarns being used in any apparel applications, other then making of stretch elastics, I find it catastrophic.

How can ever a yarn with 500% stretch ability have crease and drape quality? But then that is what is called Marketing. Selling a refrigerator to an Igloo owner.

Pathetic to see, that spandex gets used in swim wear, in gloves, socks, knitwear, diapers etc etc. Spandex made out of Isocyanides is potentially one of the most dangerous polymers next to skin. But textiles do not have a labeling policy of alarming the potential threat related to it, so it flourishes without any resistance.

Secondly, spandex which is practically a rubber elastomer, actually has zero textile properties, which is to say, breath ability of the fabric, dyeing properties, drape, cover, feel, handle , moister regain, or for that matter, even the very look of it is disgusting.


Third, even with its electrometric properties, it still could not replace the conventional rubber yarns, which were covered with spun yarns. Simple reason, that Rubber yarns are far much cheaper then the spandex yarns. And rubber is still a natural fiber and not an Isocyanides substrate.

Spandex when knitted with cotton yarns and used for body hugging fabrics is potentially carcinogenic, but not one spandex maker writes this on the product spec brochure. (Though no such event has ever been reported, more so, as never questioned) Same applies for swimwear and other such fabrics. Isocyanides chains, when degrade, release the polymer into the environment and say a swimwear starts degrading in a pool, it would all the way affect all the children in the pool.  Stability of polyurethane and polyurea chains under elevated temperatures is questionable. Therefore, while spinning the Lycra yarns on a ring traveler at speeds of 300 revolutions per second, these chains can very easily break out and the monomer dust will get coated to the yarn surface. Which is isocyanides and any mouth or skin contact can cause cancer or occupational asthma.

Spandex when used for diapers will cause skin rashes on a child or adult. Because a yarn of 500% retraction will severely burn the skin of a child. But diapers still use spandex as the preferred stretch line on diapers.

Spandex on account of very high retract ability is not also suitable for other elastic fabrics like Bra, hosiery, socks, slacks, and disaster for athletic or aerobic wear. Any stretch yarn should stand in relaxed position and elongate to take the stretch and not really make a compelling force to return to its original length. Further, a stretched filament yarn will generate internal heat against the body and cause rashes on the skin. Only a preshrunk yarn fully covered with spun cotton yarns should be used for such applications.

Though spandex is also air covered or fully covered on hollow twisting machines, yet the applications have to be only limited to
Stretch garments for healing in medical applications
Surgical hose
Support hose.
Packaging, where stretching provides safety and cover to the equipment.

One of the major applications of Spandex should have been in Defense Architecture, where Spandex yarn fabrics could have been most successfully used against bullet proofing, blast proofing or any impact resistance applications, where resilience properties are of utmost importance.

The other application should have been Motorcycle Helmets. Where spandex covered layered fabrics would have provided equal or better shield to the head against injury.

Lastly, it could have gone into making of shoe fabrics, where the soul has spandex reinforced yarns, same as tires which have nylon reinforcements.

It is only a matter of time, before the textile industry realizes that this is another Nylon Shirt, which initially was a fashion craze and now no one touches it.

Till then, make sure, never to buy any spandex or elastene or Lycra added garments.


For all those, who do not know about the Bhopal Industrial Disaster, the most accepted cause was the contact of Water with the Isocyanate gases. (Isocyanides are used for making of pesticides) Now, use your common sense and think, if water contact with Isocyanides gases could cause a nuclear like disaster, then Isocyanides, when dyed under high temperature and high pressure, what results would it yield to the yarn. Potentially dangerous Output.

This reminds me of ABC TV in Australia, which kept denying any association of waves to Breast cancer in female employees, till far too many had contracted cancer.

It is time that the industry takes note of this potentially hazardous fiber, yarn and other such applications for human skin use.

Do not ignore spandex as a possible cause for any sudden skin cancer in a non genetic or any non explicable reason, specially, if you were wearing spandex related garments.

coming up next : Yarn Dyeing Machines ; Fraud of the Century.