Wool, wood, cotton, cocoons, coal, and petroleum are natural resources used to make fabrics. The reason each of these very different things can become fabric is that they all share a common chemistry.

"You could sit down and your shirt would rip across the back," Noelie Bertoniere, who studied the chemistry of cotton in the 20th century and co-authored the book "Cotton Fiber Chemistry and ...

So even though the cotton and polyester were in the dye bath for the same amount of time, the dye stuck only a little bit. This is why the polyester fiber you soaked in the dye is lighter or duller in ...