COLORIMETRIC IDENTIFICATION OF RECYCLED CASHMERE FIBERS

Cashmere is a luxury, and expensive fier, objective and quantitative methods to identify and possibly quantify recycled cashmere are crucial to discourage adulteration of high-quality virgin cashmere with cheaper recycled fiers. This work investigates objective methodologies to quantify the amount of recycled cashmere, based on their diffrent dye absorption capacity. Pure virgin and recycled cashmere fires, along with recycled and virgin cashmere blends, were stained with C.I. Direct Red 7, and the exhaust dyebaths were analysed by UV-visible Spectroscopy in order to quantify the residual unabsorbed dye.