Socks Buying Guide

As close-fitting clothing, the comfort of wearing socks directly affects our mood. When wearing comfortable socks that fit the feet, it seems that you can hear the cells in the skin cheering and jumping for joy. On the contrary, a pair of sweat-blocking socks wrapped around your feet will make you experience what it means to live a year in a day.

You can skip meals, but you can't go without socks. You can walk on the floor barefoot, but you can't wear shoes barefoot. Although socks are small, they are essential for home and travel.

How to choose a pair of comfortable socks? Master the following tips to avoid mistakes in buying socks:

1. Material
The material of socks is the soul of a pair of socks, which directly determines the quality of a pair of socks. The fabrics of socks on the market are generally blended, generally made of a main fiber + auxiliary fiber mixed and woven, so that the advantages of each material can be utilized.

Among them, cotton + polyester fiber + spandex are the majority. There are very few socks made of 100% cotton, because cotton fibers have no elasticity. If socks are made of pure cotton, they will feel like a piece of knotted cloth when worn, and the cotton fibers have poor air permeability.

The following introduces several commonly used fibers for making socks. Understanding the texture properties of fibers allows us to better choose socks:

Cotton:

Most socks on the market use cotton fibers as the main component, which is the most traditional raw material and the most time-tested raw material.

The longer the cotton fiber, the better the quality. Sea Island cotton is the best cotton fiber in the world, with an average fiber length of 39mm and a maximum of more than 64mm. Its glossiness is also 50% higher than other cottons. It is second to none in terms of air permeability, water absorption, and wear resistance. Sea Island cotton is produced in the West Indies, especially the cotton produced in Barbados, which is the most precious. Moreover, the entire Sea Island cotton only accounts for 0.00004% of the world's cotton production, so its preciousness can be imagined.

Socks made of sea island cotton are 180 RMB per pair. Brothers and sisters with a lot of money and interest can try it.

The second is Egyptian cotton, followed by American Pima cotton, and then Xinjiang long-staple cotton, as well as ordinary cotton

The raw materials of cotton are one aspect, and the production process of cotton is also an important factor affecting the wearing experience of socks. Combed cotton is better than ordinary cotton

Combed cotton refers to the process of adding a delicate combing procedure during the spinning process. The method is to comb out the shorter fibers and remove impurities in the cotton to create smooth yarn, making the cotton more resilient and less prone to pilling, and the quality of cotton is more stable.

The yarn spun from combed cotton is finer and of better quality. Fabrics made from combed cotton yarn have a higher quality level in texture, washability and durability.

The difference between combed cotton and carded cotton

Combed cotton: soft and delicate to the touch, soft and smooth precision texture, and fine and smooth texture.

Carded cotton: hard to the touch, rougher than combed, and wrinkled and difficult to flatten.

Shrinkage rate: Carded cotton shows a larger shrinkage rate after washing, while combed cotton shows a smaller shrinkage rate.

Deformation: Carded cotton shows a larger shrinkage rate after washing, while combed cotton shows a smaller shrinkage rate.

Usually, socks with a cotton content of more than 75% can be called pure cotton socks, and socks with a cotton content of 85% are very high-end cotton socks.

Wool:

Wool is an animal fiber, and its warmth retention, moisture absorption, and breathability are significantly better than cotton fibers. Cotton fibers have good moisture absorption effects, but poor moisture discharge. Socks with wool as the main fiber will also be much more expensive accordingly. Wool socks are suitable for wearing when you sweat a lot.

Cashmere:

Cashmere is a layer of soft hair that grows on the outer epidermis of goats and hides at the roots of goat hair. It grows in the cold winter and gradually falls off in the warm spring. Compared with wool and other fibers, it has the characteristics of being slender, soft, smooth, light, warm, soft and elastic, which makes up for the shortcomings of wool, such as being heavy, rough, poor elasticity and large shrinkage.

Cashmere socks are better than wool socks, and the price is correspondingly more expensive

Bamboo fiber:

Bamboo fiber is a general expression, which is divided into bamboo fiber and bamboo pulp fiber. Bamboo fiber is a natural fiber, and bamboo pulp fiber is a chemical fiber.

Bamboo fiber: It retains many advantages of bamboo itself to the maximum extent: antibacterial (containing a substance called bamboo Kun), anti-ultraviolet, water absorption and breathability, etc.

Bamboo pulp fiber: It is a regenerated bamboo fiber (bamboo pulp fiber) obtained by chemical methods. Many of the characteristics of bamboo itself are basically gone, and only the cellulose in it is used.

Polyester fiber:

Polyester fiber, also known as polyester. The largest variety of synthetic fibers at present. The biggest advantage of polyester fiber is that it has good wrinkle resistance and shape retention, and has high strength and elastic recovery ability. It is durable, wrinkle-resistant, iron-free, and non-sticky.

Compared with natural fibers: poor moisture absorption, poor air permeability, easy to pilling, and easy to generate static electricity.

Acrylic:

The performance of acrylic fiber is very similar to wool, so it is called "synthetic wool". Acrylic has a low density, even smaller than wool, and the fabric has good warmth retention.

Spandex:

Spandex is an elastic fiber. Blended with other fibers, it makes socks elastic, comfortable to wear, soft to the touch, and wrinkle-free, and can always maintain the original outline. The general content is 3%-8%

Lycra:

Lycra is also a stretch fiber, a little better than spandex. Lycra (LYCRA) can be freely stretched 4 to 7 times, and quickly return to its original length after the external force is released.

2. Sock details
Comfort:

Comfort is related to the material and production process. For example, socks made of combed cotton are more comfortable than ordinary cotton. Materials with high breathability are more comfortable than those with low breathability

Socks head:

Try to choose products with hand-sewn heads, which are smooth, comfortable and without nausea.

Socks come off the machine with an open end, like a sleeve, and then they need to be sewn, that is, the open end is sewn up to form a pocket, and the prototype of the socks is here. Then they are shaped, which is equivalent to ironing. Use a special sock board and a shaping machine to iron the socks flat. Then package the finished products for sale.

There are generally two ways to sew heads:

Machine sewing: Machine sewing is fast. Just like a sewing machine, you can automatically sew when you put the socks in. The output is high, but the sewn socks will have a bulge like a tendon, which will hurt the toes when worn on the feet. Although the new "imitation eye-sewing" process can also sew thinner, it is different from hand-sewn eye-sewing after all.

Eye-sewing heads: It is a traditional method that relies purely on manual labor, is relatively slow, and has high requirements for employees, so the cost will naturally be much higher. The stitching ends are required to be manually aligned with each needle, and the excess thread ends are pulled off. After sewing, no traces can be seen, and it is natural and comfortable to wear without feeling.

Socks label:

Generally, socks with national standard commodity barcodes will not have false or random ingredients. If this is found out, you will be fined. If a pair of socks does not even have ingredients and barcodes, you should be careful.