Question for Our Fiber Experts: What Black Sweater is Least Likely to Get Linty in Seconds?

April

Like dark hardwood floors (where you truly can spend your entire day picking up white specks), black sweaters just attract every piece of white dust, thread, lint, and fuzz from the surrounding world. Don't even mention pet hair.

Anyone know what fiber is least likely to draw and hang onto these linty bits?

8 years ago

General

24 replies

Latest reply was from bj1111

Suzanne (ambergreen)

Veteran

This is a bit of a left-field answer...but I thought of this Club Monaco sweater that I lemmed in 2014. It's shiny--and I didn't realize until it arrived that basically, the acrylic yarn was *melted* on the surface to make it that way. I found that quite interesting. I suppose my point is that if something has a soft surface, it's a lot more likely to get linty?

Club Monaco

Franny Sweater

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8 years ago

cjh

(website)

Veteran

Merino wool, cotton/nylon blend, cotton/rayon blend. Fine knits will be better. Acrylic or lambswool will be the first to pick up lint or pill.

8 years ago

April

Veteran

Oh my, Suzanne, I have that sweater myself, and you're right -- it's way less prone to lint than others. I almost don't even think of it as a sweater, more like chain mail.

8 years ago

April

Veteran

CJH -- that is so helpful! Are you a knitter?

8 years ago

Suzanne (ambergreen)

Veteran

How cool that you already had that solution.

8 years ago

Diana

Veteran

It's hard to generalize but I agree with cjh that fine cotton blends tend to be the least linty. They are smooth and non-staticky. I find acrylic and polar fleece the worst. One test you can do is to rub the fabric together slightly and then hold it up to your hair. If it produces a lot of static (i.e. makes your hair stand up) then it's going to be a lint magnet. Some very fuzzy sweaters (think things with a "halo" like mohair or certain cashmeres) will also attract lint, not so much through static but because the halo tends to hold on to the lint.

8 years ago

Style Fan

Veteran

Cotton and cashmere appears to lint free in my world. I have a white dog and I am lint and dog hair free when I wear those fibres.

8 years ago

April

Veteran

Yes, although I do have that Club Monaco sweater, it is a very "specific" look and not one that can be made to work with every outfit in which a black sweater is called for.

In the Audrey outfit from Angie's post today, for example, it would change the vibe completely.

8 years ago

tulle

Veteran

I would say slippery silk knit is the least linty. Unfortunately, it's also the least cozy and warm. Heavy, fine-quality cashmeres (like those from the Scottish mills) tend to be less fuzzy and lint-attracting, but they are expensive and hard to find. What can you do but invest in a bunch of those lint-rollers and keep them everywhere?

8 years ago

April

Veteran

Tulle, before my husband's dear little cat found another home with my father-in-law, she used to leave huge amounts of black fur everywhere. My husband, who can be a compulsive overbuyer, used to buy two of three sticky lint-roller refills every time he left the house. (No, I'm not exaggerating. I used to give him a list of things NOT to buy.)

Kitty moved in with my father-in-law several years ago, and I still have cupboards full of those sticky refills. I'll be trying to use them up when I'm in my 70s, should I live so long, so no worries there! We're well-supplied.

8 years ago

Suz

(website)

Veteran

April, I have no answer to your question but I am more and more convinced that Mr. A and Mr. Suz have to meet. Compulsive over-buyers of inane unneeded implements unite! (Meanwhile, their spouses can unite over their perfectly reasonable purchase of updated boots and booties...)

8 years ago

Joy

Veteran

To the fibers mentioned I would add nylon or a blend with nylon. I have a mostly white fuzzy dog so go through lots of those sticky rollers on dark fabrics.

8 years ago

JAileen

Veteran

I might be an expert in pet hair. As you can see, no matter what I wear, the dog hair will show. I think cotton would probably be best. Something where the knit is very smooth.

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8 years ago

Beth

Veteran

Cotton or a very fine merino are my best bets for repelling kitty fur. With one black cat and one that's cream-colored, there's no hope of stray hairs blending in.

I'd also like to petition to be a member of the Spouses of Compulsive Overbuyers Club. We have an embarrassing backlog of paper towels, toilet tissue, and (bizarrely) pasta in our house.

8 years ago

anne

Veteran

My DH is a bit of an overbuyer too (Although we still run out of toilet paper occasionally). We only just used up bulk dishwasher tablets he bought in 2013 (we only got a dishwasher in 2016! though were temporarily staying somewhere that had it when he bought them)

He chides me when I just buy 1 or 2 cans of something. He has been proved right though, in general, because with a family of five and lots of people over for things, we do actually go though a lot. (Even things like tomato sauce (ketchup) which we have multiple large bottles of)

8 years ago

April

Veteran

Oh, yes -- the paper towels. Do not get me started. Once we get down to three or four rolls, the anxious questioning begins. "Do you think we need paper towels? Should I pick up a few rolls? I feel like we're a little low on paper towels."

I grew up in a house where you practically needed permission to use a paper towel. They were for things that had spilled on the floor (and thus would contaminate a proper dish towel) or for draining fried foods. And that was it. I'm sure we were saving the planet, even though the real reason we weren't allowed to use them was my mum's extreme frugality.

8 years ago

bj1111

Veteran

April

My mother will use a paper towel to wipe her mouth during a quick lunch, save it to do a quick wipe down the counter then stash it under the sink for a "dirtier" clean up job. If it does not develop holes, it gets moved to the garage for more clean up duties.

We froze in the car because she didn't want to turn on the heat during the Chicago winters to save the car from wear. Then my husband told me the heat was vented from the engine. Wah!

Sometimes, I am thrifty in foolish ways that I just can't shake. Then I buy a pair of choos...problem solved!

8 years ago

Joy

Veteran

I'd gladly forgo paper towels for a pair of choos.

8 years ago

April

Veteran

bj1111 -- I don't know if your mother is sweet and surreptitious about her thrifty ways, but mine can be downright nasty. She will, for example, go through my trash cans to see if I've thrown away anything that she deems "still good", so that she can lecture me on being wasteful. This is in my own home.

I almost wouldn't mind if she just couldn't help herself and did it behind my back, it's the scornful lecturing in front of others that I can't abide. I'm 52 years old, it's my house, it's my trash.

Goodness, how we've strayed from linty black sweaters! Is it any wonder that I became a psychologist...

8 years ago

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Heh, I've been doomed to a life covered in dog hair since my husband and I met -- he had a husky/shepherd mix named Rocky, and we dubbed lint rollers "Rocky rollers" many years ago. Even now, 4+ years after Rocky died and with two pugs and two catahoulas instead, we still call them Rocky rollers, and we use them nearly as much as we ever did! Pugs shed like crazy.

8 years ago

Sammy Gregory

Active Member

As I started looking for sweaters (it's already cold here :O ) I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for asking!

8 years ago

bj1111

Veteran

april, my mother and i reached a detente when she would lecture me over the phone during my grudging weekly phone call. i would nicely announce mid-rant that i am hanging up now, then DID.

she has also mellowed in her old age. thankfully, her visits to my house are infrequent and haven't happened in at least 5 years. i go to the big city by her house very frequently for business and slip in a few days to visit.

to bring it back to topic, she used to criticize me for "sloppy" dressing which is where linty sweaters would reside. for her, it's more than just slovenly. it's downright slatternly.

8 years ago

April

Veteran

Mothers -- what can you do.

BJ, mine is the opposite. She'll "compliment" me, but it's really a veiled criticism along the lines of, "Aren't you being a little extravagant with your wardrobe?" Things like, "Oh, this one always looks like she just stepped out of a band box." (What the heck is a band box, anyway?) Or, "Are you going somewhere today?"

In a desperate attempt to remain on topic, I note that the finest Rocky Rollers (high five, Janet) are medium-sticky and well perforated. Scotch brand is good.

8 years ago

bj1111

Veteran

april,

apparently a bandbox is where well dressed men and women of the late 1800s would keep their neck ruffs, also known as bands. a more recent usage is where early 20th century (pre-20s) men would keep their fashionable detachable collars, also called bands.

now used to denote an exquisitely neat, clean, or ordered appearance as if just taken from a bandbox.

i would not keep linty sweater or rocky rollers in band boxes because i am a slattern.

8 years ago

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