Hyaluronic Acid Applications in Textiles

Hyaluronic acid, is a polysaccharide substance extracted from the vitreous humor of bull's eye by scientists Karl Meyer and John Palmer of Columbia University in 1934, which is viscous and transparent like glass, hence the name "Hyaluronic Acid". Hyaluronic Acid", abbreviated as "HA". 

There are two main methods of HA production, namely animal tissue extraction and microbial fermentation. Animal tissue extraction method has been gradually eliminated due to the disadvantages of restricted raw material sources, low product purity and high production cost, and microbial fermentation method has become the mainstream technology for large-scale HA production. There is no species difference in the structure and properties of HA from different sources.

HA is a polymer composed of glucuronic acid and N-acetylamino glucose, with an average relative molecular weight of 103 to 107 Da. HA has excellent moisturizing, lubricating, viscoelastic and biocompatible properties, and has been widely used in medicine, food, cosmetics and other fields. 

There are more than 10,000 new cosmetic products containing HA in the world every year, and HA is among the top three ingredients in a cosmetic ingredient search app that summarizes the ranking of efficacy that consumers are concerned about. Compared with cosmetics, textiles have a longer contact time and larger contact area with the human body, and the addition of beauty and skin care ingredients in textiles can achieve a greater degree of skin health effects. At present, more skin care ingredients used in textiles are collagen, vitamin E, aloe vera extract, etc. In recent years, with the improvement of production technology and application research, HA as the star ingredient of skin care has gradually entered the vision of textile researchers and become one of the innovative application hotspots of functional textiles.

The application of HA in textiles can be traced back to the 1990's. In 1992, JEAN et al. in France disclosed a patent for a fabric finishing agent to prevent nitrogen release, and in its implementation, HA was preferred as a moisturizing additive. However, few HA-related applications were reported after that until the last 5 years, when some innovative companies started to explore the preparation of HA fabrics as HA skin care applications became more popular. In recent years, with the advancement of functional textile preparation technology, the decline of HA price and the increase of consumer awareness, a number of skin care textiles with HA as the efficacy factor have gradually emerged. 

2017 Let's young in Korea launched "Hyaluronic Acid Thermostatic Mask Coat", which can not only play a warm role, but also keep the skin continuously moist and not dry. Since 2019, Chinese underwear brands have also launched hyaluronic acid skin care products, such as THREEGUN skin beauty and body slimming underwear series, such as oxygen hyaluronic acid skin beauty and warm underwear, Ou Feiqian hyaluronic acid one-piece shapewear, etc. In the summer of 2020, HA became the new favorite of many famous clothing brands, such as Cache Cache water light beauty hyaluronic acid T-shirt, Le Machi black technology hyaluronic acid T-shirt, Handu Clothes House hyaluronic acid T-shirt and jeans, etc. 

In addition, there are also cases of HA applied to bedding, the hotel fabric brand "Stalford" combines HA with TencelTM, putting forward the concept of "exquisite sleep, sleep out of the hydrated skin"; Dapu's hyaluronic acid bedding series can gradually release HA skin care factor when the fabric touches the skin. The HA skin care factor is gradually released when the fabric touches the skin. Most of the fabrics of the above products use the finishing process to combine HA or its microcapsules on the fiber, and when the fabric comes into contact with the skin, HA is gradually transferred to the skin surface to play the role of moisturizing and skin care.

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