GSM, blend, and why a scrub pills at month four

A scrub that pills at month four is not a defective garment. It is a fabric that was asked to do something it was not built for.

Two numbers tell most of the story.

GSM means grams per square metre. It is the weight of the fabric, and it predicts how a garment will hang and how long it will last. A heavier fabric drapes with more body and takes abrasion better. A lighter fabric feels cooler and wrinkles faster. Neither is better in the abstract. A theatre scrub worn in an air conditioned room and a ward scrub worn in a Terai summer want different weights.

The blend is the second number, usually written as two percentages. Cotton breathes and feels good against skin, but it holds moisture and shrinks. Polyester is stronger, dries faster and resists wrinkles, but on its own it can feel slick and trap heat. A blended fabric is an attempt to take the useful half of each.

Pilling is where those two numbers meet. Short staple fibres work loose from the surface and roll into small balls, usually where the fabric rubs: the underarm, the inner thigh, the waistband. A looser knit pills faster. A high polyester content with a low twist yarn pills faster still.

Four washes a week for four months is sixty plus cycles. That is the real test, and no fabric looks the same after it. The question is not whether a fabric changes but whether it degrades in a way that affects how the garment wears.

A fabric that softens and dulls slightly is normal. A fabric that pills across the thigh, loses its shape at the knee and fades unevenly has failed.

Ask for the GSM and the blend before you order. A supplier who cannot tell you either is selling you a photograph.