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Milliken StainSmart Fabrics Outperform Leading Stain Repellant Fabrics

Recent performance test conducted by CCRC indicates that Milliken's dual-action stain repel-and-release fabrics score high marks in several stain tests

SPARTANBURG, South Carolina — (Nov. 9, 2004) — Milliken & Company®, one of the world's largest privately-held textile and chemical manufacturers, today announced that StainSmart®, the company's newest dual-action stain repel-and-release fabric, outperforms leading single-action stain repellant fabrics in the apparel markets according to a recent study conducted by the Clothes Care Research Center™ (CCRC).

CCRC conducted a head-to-head comparison of the appearance and performance characteristics of two fabric finishes on a cotton twill blend: a leading single-action stain repellent and Milliken's dual-action StainSmart stain repel-and-release finish. Stain repellent finishes repel spills and stains on contact. Stain repel-and-release finishes, such as StainSmart, not only repel spills and stains on contact, but also facilitate the removal of stains during the washing process.

"In a head-to-head comparison of stain repellent finishes on cotton blend fabrics, we found that StainSmart outperformed leading repellent technologies for water and oil repellency," said Dr. Elizabeth P. Easter, board member for CCRC and director of the University of Kentucky's Textile Testing Laboratory. "StainSmart delivered unsurpassed soil release performance on tough stains such as oil and its color retention performance was significantly better than fabrics of comparable fiber types."

CCRC is a cooperative effort among Cotton Incorporated; GE Consumer Products; Milliken & Company; Procter & Gamble; VF Imagewear; the University of Kentucky's Textile Testing Laboratory and Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The members represent every phase of clothing care in the home, from textiles and apparel to appliances and detergents. The mission of CCRC is to understand, evaluate and improve clothes care in the home.

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