Textile finish's impact on fabric stain removal and whiteness maintenance during home laundry

The majority of consumer apparel and textiles are with textile finishes processed at textile mills before reaching retailers. The finish presence on fabrics often changes fabric surface energy and fabric interaction with soils, leading to a different cleaning profile during home laundry. In this paper, common textile softeners such as silicones, waxes, fatty derivatives as well as durable press finishes are studied for their impacts on fabric stain removal and whiteness maintenance during home laundry. It was found that fabrics finished with amino-silicones often had reduced removal index of commonly used oily stains and poor whiteness maintenance, probably caused by its hydrophobicity and its interaction with stains. On the other hand, fabrics finished with nonionic fatty amide had an improved stain removal profile, probably caused by its hydrophilic surface as well as its poor finish wash fastness. In general, textile finishes improve fabric whiteness maintenance, probably caused by improved textile brightener fastness with textile finishes.