Fabric-evoked Prickle in Worsted Spun Single Jersey Fabrics. Part 3: Wear Trial Studies of Absolute Fabric Acceptability, Textile Res

Fabric-evoked prickle is an unpleasant sensation which is sometimes linked to wool-containing fabrics in next-to-skin applications. Studies have shown that the sensation arises from the mechanical stimulation of specific nerve endings and is not caused by an allergenic response [1, 2]. These particular nerve endings are triggered by a threshold force on the skin of the order of 0.75 mN (see [2]), although this varies considerably within the human population. As a fabric presses against the skin during wear, pro-truding fiber ends appear to obey Euler’s simple buckling theory [3], i.e. under compression between the fabric sur-face and the skin, a fiber end remains rigid up to a thresh-old load, the buckling load. Above this threshold, buckling occurs.1 The threshold force is proportional to Ed4/l2 (where E is the Young’s modulus of the material, d is th