Avgol is launching a new technology to deliver enhanced softness and user-comfort in hygiene applications to meet ever-evolving consumer and global producer needs.
comfortFIT Feel has been developed as part of Avgol’s Forward Innovative Thinking (FIT) strategy which represents the company’s commitment to harnessing expertise to anticipate the needs of consumers and create high-performance technologies. The FIT strategy is also part of an aim to create an alternative to carded fiber performance.
Part of the comfortFIT range of technologies, comfortFIT Feel creates a new level of softness for applications, including diapers, through combinations of chemistry and pattern design. Designed to be modular in nature, the technology can be used alone or alongside other FIT technologies to enhance functionality further and provide a palette of softness solutions for product designers.
Nick Carter, director, market business intelligence and Intellectual property at Avgol, says, “Caregivers are increasingly looking to ensure only the most comfortable fabrics come into contact with a child’s delicate skin. The technology employed by comfortFIT Feel has been adapted from the cosmetic market for use in nonwovens.
"comfortFIT Feel features cotton-like spunmelt material offering further compressibility and contributing to an improved consumer experience by reducing the sense of 'plastic-feel'. With this technology, we are delivering softness through additives that do not contain co-polymers, creating a cottony, rather than slippery, feel. This, in turn, does not compromise product functionality."
comfortFIT Feel offers improved conversion performance for hygiene products, thus decreasing process changes and increasing speed to market. Its development is part of an exciting programme of novel chemistries and technologies to meet the ever-evolving comfort and softness needs of consumers, whilst adding value for Avgol customers in leading-edge developments, quality and service.
Carter adds, "Softness can be difficult to define and achieve, however Avgol understands that it is about the synergy of touch, feel, flexibility, stretch and surface aesthetics, delivered in combination to achieve the desired effect."