Intake Ability of Powder Puffs Made of Synthetic-fiber Cloths

Abstract

This study has two final goals. The one is to obtain some practical and fundamental guides to designing cosmetic powder puffs made of synthetic-fiber cloths which have superior intake abilities, including micro-fiber puffs. The other is to confirm whether micro-fiber powder puffs have good intake ability or not. Some measurements were conducted using five kinds of synthetic-fiber puffs, each with different fiber diameters and pile lengths, and one kind of cotton puff currently on the market in Japan. The measurements included the intake weight of powder, observation of puffs coming in contact with powder, the weight of powder retained on a fiber, SEM photographs of powder retention, etc. It was concluded that important factors in designing superior synthetic-fiber puffs are fiber diameter, pile length and space between fibers. Micro-fiber puffs used in this study had not good intake ability.