Tuesday, September 08, 2009

HOW TO CHECK WHETHER THE RUG YOU HAVE PRUCHASED IS HAVING ORIGINAL SILK AND NOT FAUX SILK.

excerpts from http://www.originalsilk-rugs.com/


When you buy Original silk Rug, from India, you have to be sure that you buy original only. There are certain details as under -

Real Silk : Silk is the soft and shiny fiber that is used in a variety of luxury textiles. By a process known as sericulture, silk is obtained from the cocoon of the silkworm larva. The shiny appearance of silk comes from the fibres' triangular prism-like structure, owing to which the fabric refracts light at different angles. Chemically, natural silk is C15H23O6N5 (we give the formula in case you want to whip up a batch of your own). Silk is extremely high in tensile strength, exceeding that of nylon. It has been estimated that if a single silk fiber with the diameter of a pencil could be produced, the fiber could lift a 747 aircraft (who figures these things out, anyway?). Silk is used to make Oriental rugs because dyed silk is a fiber with rich, saturated colors, and a distinctive, almost translucent luster.

Artificial Silk : Silk which is not original is artificial silk. Rugs . Most often this means mercerized cotton; sometimes it means a manufactured fiber like rayon or a blend of chemically altered and/or manufactured fibers.

How to Identify A Real Silk Oriental area Rug : There are 3 tests you can perform.

1. RUBBING TEST Rub the pile with your open palm. The real silk rug feels warm, the artificial silk rug stays cool to the touch.

2. BURNING TEST : Look at the ash and smell the smoke. If the material was cellulose (rayon), the ash should be soft and chalky, and the smell should be like burning paper (most paper is made of cellulose). If the sample is real silk, the burning sample should ball to a black, crispy ash, and the smell should be of burning hair (you're burning protein, the same stuff your hair is made of).

3. DISSOLVE TEST : At room temperature, mix a solution of 16 g copper sulfate (CuSO4) in 150 cc of water. Add 8-10 g glycerine, then caustic soda (sodium hydroxide: NaOH) until a clear solution is obtained. This solution will dissolve a small sample of natural silk, but will leave cotton, rayon, and nylon unchanged.

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