Polar fleece is a soft

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is no ...

made from

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...

that is napped and insulating. PolarFleece is a trademark registered by

Malden Mills Malden Mills Industries is the original developer and manufacturer of Polartec polar fleece and manufactures other modern textiles. The company is located in Andover, Massachusetts and has operations in Hudson, New Hampshire. History Malden Mi ...

(now Polartec, LLC) with the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark ...

on October 6, 1981. Malden Mills developed polar fleece in 1979.

Uses

Polar fleece is used in

jacket A jacket is a garment for the upper body, usually extending below the hips. A jacket typically has sleeves and fastens in the front or slightly on the side. Jackets without sleeves are vests. A jacket is generally lighter, tighter-fitting, and ...

s, hats, sweaters, sweatpants, cloth diapers (nappies), gym clothes,

hoodie A hoodie is a type of sweatshirt with a hood that, when worn up, covers most of the head and neck, and sometimes the face. The most common 'pullover' style hoodies often include a single large knife pocket or muff on the lower front, whil ...

pajamas Pajamas (American English) or pyjamas ( Commonwealth English), sometimes colloquially shortened to PJs, jammies, jim-jams, or in South Asia, night suits, are several related types of clothing worn as nightwear or while lounging. Pajamas are ...

, blankets, and high-performance outdoor clothing. The produced fleece can be used to create clothes that are very light, soft, and easy to wash. Polar fleece can stretch more easily in one direction than in others.

History

Polar fleece originated in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

in 1979 when Malden Mills and

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

developed Synchilla (synthetic

chinchilla Chinchilla refers to either of two species ('' Chinchilla chinchilla'' and '' Chinchilla lanigera'') of crepuscular rodents of the parvorder Caviomorpha, and are native to the Andes mountains in South America. They live in colonies called "her ...

). It was a new, light, strong pile fabric meant to mimic, and in some ways surpass,

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

. Malden Mills CEO Aaron Feuerstein intentionally declined to

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

polar fleece, allowing the material to be produced cheaply and widely by many vendors, leading to the material's quick and wide acceptance. Malden Mills registered PolarFleece as a trademark with the

on October 6, 1981.

Characteristics

Variants

A lightweight, warm and soft fabric, fleece has some of

's good qualities. Polar fleece garments are traditionally available in the micro, 100, 200, and 300 variants, where the numbers represent the fleece's weight in grams per square meter (gsm). The heavier fleece are warmer. Fleece can range from being high loft to tightly knit. High loft fleece is warmer because it traps tiny air pockets which holds body heat. Traditionally, polar fleece always had a two-sided pile (i.e., they were fluffy on both sides), but now clothes are often advertised as polar fleece even if they lack a two-sided pile. High pile fleece (which have a higher loft), will eventually lose some loft by becoming matted over time. High pile fleece are also more prone to collecting dirt than low pile fleece. Fleece can also be made out of recycled

polyethylene terephthalate Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibre, fibres for clothing, packaging, conta ...

(PET) bottles, or even recycled fleece.

Maintenance

To prevent high pile fleece from matting, they can be brushed regularly (which also removes dirt) and hung rather than folded. To remove already existing matting, rinse it in cool water and while it is still damp, gently and unidirectionally brush the matting out (while optionally lightly spraying it with water), and then use a lint roller. Fleece is machine washable and dries quickly. Fleece readily generates

static electricity Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it can move away by an electric current or electrical discharge. The word "static" is used to differentiate it from electric ...

, which causes the accumulation of lint, dust, and pet hair. It is also susceptible to damage from high temperature washing, tumble drying, or

ironing Ironing is the use of an iron (appliance), iron, usually heated, to remove wrinkles and unwanted creases from fabric. The heating is commonly done to a temperature of , depending on the fabric. Ironing works by loosening the bonds between the lon ...

under unusual conditions. Lower-quality polyester fleece material is also prone to

pilling Pilling is a village and civil parish within the Borough of Wyre, Wyre borough of Lancashire, England. It is north-northeast of Poulton-le-Fylde, south-southwest of Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster and northwest of Preston, Lancashire, P ...

(i.e., the jacket's fabrics break and reform into tiny balls on the jacket).

Effectiveness

It is

hydrophobic In chemistry, hydrophobicity is the chemical property of a molecule (called a hydrophobe) that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water. In contrast, hydrophiles are attracted to water. Hydrophobic molecules tend to be nonpolar and, thu ...

, but it is not waterproof and can absorb water. When wet, it holds less than 1% of its weight in water, and depending on its weight takes 1–4 hours to dry (even on your body in cold temperatures). Fleece loses most of its insulating quality when wet. Regular polar fleece is not windproof.

Microfiber pollution

Washing synthetic textiles like fleece releases microfibers, a type of microplastic. The release of these microfibers into the wastewater is proportional to the microplastic pollution in soil, marine, and freshwater habitats. Studies also show that tumble drying of polyester releases airborne

microplastics Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics a ...

References

External links

Polartec, once Malden Mills, the original manufacturer of Polartec and Polarfleece
{{Fabric American inventions Pile fabrics Technical fabrics 1990s fashion