You'll smell the difference...
2006-11-24 14:01
Michael Rubinkam
Pennsylvania - Bill McNally believes he has found a silver bullet for keeping the stink out of your socks. Not to mention your underwear, workout clothes, travel outfits, and hiking and hunting gear.
McNally's company, Scranton-based Noble Biomaterials, embeds silver in clothing worn by US soldiers, elite athletes and weekend warriors alike - thus capitalising on the precious metal's increasing popularity as a way to keep clothes smelling fresh, even after multiple wears without a wash.
Noble is among a handful of companies that produce silver-coated textiles for use in the burgeoning market for hi-tech performance clothing.
The 10-year-old, privately held company's sales have grown an average of 50% per year, and doubled in the last 18 months.
Silver kills odour-causing bacteria; it also redistributes body heat, keeping the wearer warm in cold weather and cool in hot weather.
"I think it's a great concept for workout clothes and athletic gear, things you don't necessarily wash every single time," said Marlene Bourne, president of Bourne Research in Arizona.
Bourne studies emerging technologies - and has worn a pullover threaded with Noble's silver-coated fibre, called X-Static.
Noble has licensed X-Static to more than 300 companies, including Adidas, Umbro, Puma, Polartec and other apparel makers. England's national soccer team wore X-Static jerseys at the World Cup, and track-and-field squads from 60 countries clad themselves in it during the 2004 Athens Olympics.
'It is a growing field'
Lululemon Athletica Inc, a Canadian sportswear company, incorporates X-Static in workout and running garments, "a lot of the sports you would sweat in", said spokesperson Sara Gardiner. "The feedback we've received has been fantastic."
While most of Noble's growth has been concentrated in Europe and Asia, X-Static is also gaining ground in the United States.
US soldiers and Marines already wear X-Static socks and T-shirts, which provide "olfactory camouflage" as well as a first line of defence against shrapnel wounds, because any of the silver fabric that becomes embedded in the wound "actually starts treating the wound," according to McNally, the company founder.
"You spend enough time in the jungle like I did, with clothes rotting off you and all sorts of skin infections, and I knew there had to be a better way," said McNally, 45, a Marine veteran.
Though a pair of X-Static socks contains only about one-hundredth of an ounce of silver, Noble cajoles wearers to take the "Double Dog Dare": Put one foot in an X-Static sock and the other in a regular sock for a week straight without washing - and "smell the difference".
Silver's germ-killing properties have been known for thousands of years. In ancient times, silver was used to purify water. More recently, silver nitrate was dropped in newborns' eyes to ward off bacterial infections from the mother, but has largely been replaced with antibiotics.
As manufacturers look to feed America's obsession with germ-fighting, they are adding the metal to a wide array of consumer products.
"It is a growing field, there's no question about it," said Michael DiRienzo, executive director of The Silver Institute, a Washington-based trade group.
On the net:
www.noblefiber.com
www.silverinstitute.org
- AP