When it comes to nonwoven dry wipes, the raw material is naturally nonwoven fabric. However, nonwoven is actually a very broad category that includes different manufacturing processes, fiber compositions, and GSM ranges. These factors directly affect the material’s softness, absorbency, wet strength, linting performance, and overall hand feel. Different characteristics are suitable for different applications, which makes raw material selection a critical issue for manufacturers.
In practice, choosing the right nonwoven material should always depend on the product’s target application and market positioning. In this article, we will discuss how to properly select raw materials for nonwoven dry wipes production.
Spunlace Nonwoven: The Mainstream Material for Personal Care Dry Wipes
For personal care products such as facial dry wipes, baby wipes, and cotton soft towels, spunlace nonwoven is currently the most widely used process. Compared with other nonwoven technologies, spunlace offers a softer hand feel, better absorbency, and stronger wet strength, making it more suitable for products that come into direct contact with skin.
Within spunlace nonwoven materials, there are also different fiber compositions used for different product positioning.
100% Cotton Spunlace
100% cotton spunlace is commonly used for premium personal care products. It provides a natural and soft touch, without skin sensitivity or irritation, making it popular for facial cleansing and baby care applications.
100% cotton spunlace has the highest cost. Due to the characteristics of the fiber, it is generally thinner than other blended materials. Typical GSM for 100% cotton dry wipes is usually between 45–70 gsm, depending on the required thickness and usage scenario.
100% Viscose Spunlace
100% viscose spunlace is also very common in the dry wipes market. In fact, many products marketed as cotton soft towels are actually made from viscose materials due to their excellent softness and absorbency.
Compared with pure cotton, viscose offers better cost efficiency while still maintaining a cloth-like texture and comfortable skin feel.
Typical GSM for viscose spunlace products is generally between 60–100 gsm.
Polyester-Viscose Blends
Polyester-viscose blended spunlace materials are widely used in mid-range dry wipes products. Blending ratios include 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, 30/70 and so on.
Increasing polyester content improves tensile strength and reduces material cost, while higher viscose ratios provide a softer hand feel and better absorbency. Manufacturers usually adjust the blending ratio according to the target market and pricing level.
100% Polyester Spunlace
100% polyester spunlace is mainly used for industrial or economy-grade wiping products where softness is not the primary requirement. Although it offers good strength and cost advantages, its absorbency and skin feel are generally lower compared with cotton or viscose materials.
Materials Used for Kitchen and Household Cleaning Wipes
Kitchen and household cleaning wipes are also a major category of non-woven dry wipes, and in recent years, they have gradually replaced traditional kitchen paper towels due to their better user experience. Unlike personal care wipes, kitchen and household cleaning products require stronger cleaning performance and higher oil absorption capability. For these functions, PP wood-pulp composite materials are widely chosen.
This fabric combines the strength of polypropylene with the absorbency of wood-pulp, not easy to break after absorbing water and oil, making it suitable for disposable kitchen wipes and household cleaning products. These materials usually provide:
- Strong liquid absorption
- Good oil absorption
- Low lint performance
- Better cost efficiency for mass-market cleaning products
Typical GSM for PP woodpulp cleaning wipes is commonly between 40–80 gsm. In addition, airlaid paper and dust-free paper are also used in certain disposable cleaning and industrial wiping applications due to their high absorbency and economical cost.
Other Materials for Economy and Industrial Wipes
For lower-cost or industrial wiping products, manufacturers may also use materials such as thermal bond nonwoven or air-through nonwoven. These materials are generally stiffer and less soft than spunlace products, but they offer advantages in production cost and structural stability for specific applications. For products with low value and high replacement frequency, these materials are more often selected.
Choosing the Right Material
In actual production, raw material selection is rarely based on a single factor. Manufacturers must balance softness, absorbency, strength, converting performance, and overall cost according to the target market and product positioning.
Different materials may also be suitable for different configurations during converting. For this reason, understanding raw material characteristics is essential not only for product development, but also for efficient production line planning. However, regarding the machine side, a good machine should have good material compatibility and be able to process materials with different compositions, basis weights, and tensions. This can be a criterion for product manufacturers to select equipment suppliers.
