Choosing a bean bag - Fabric
Posted by karen | Filed under Design & Manufacture, General News, Interior Trends
Further to our blog post earlier this week on bean bag quality, we thought an in-depth guide to choosing the perfect bean bag might be useful to our customers. This time we look at choosing the right bean bag fabric.
Bean bag fabric
What fabric should I choose?
As we mentioned in our last post, the most popular fabric for bean bags are faux leather, woven polyester, or faux suede with cotton also making an appearance.
Faux Leather Bean Bags
Try to choose a faux leather that looks pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing. A good faux leather has a woven (slightly hairy) backing which is often a grey colour. This is the fabric that we use at BeanBagBazaar and it is exactly the same as is used in the making of good quality upholstered furniture or in faux leather seats of executive motor cars. It costs roughly twice the price as a ‘cheap and nasty’ faux leather! Cheaper faux leathers have a plastic, almost shiny, look to them and a thin white knitted backing. They are consequently much less attractive and less hardwearing.
Woven Polyester (Outdoor) Bean Bags
This fabric is water resistant and great for outdoor use. Unfortunately woven polyester is not totally waterproof (despite any claims to the contrary) but it’s properties mean that it is great for barbeques and outside use, and it’s crisp fabric and lines means that the bean bags hold their shape very well.
It is broadly available in two grades of thickness; a heavy-weight weave that tends to be used in the production of tents and awnings (be aware that this can be quite rough and uncomfortable on the skin if you plan to sunbathe on your bean bag!). Most UK companies use a softer and thinner polyester which is still very strong but kinder on the skin. The vast majority of this fabric comes from the same supply source so you can be very confident that you are comparing like for like when shopping around for the best deals.
Faux Suede Bean Bags
Faux suede is the most expensive of the popular fabrics but is still very popular for home furnishings. The benefits of a good quality faux suede are that the pile lasts forever and doesn’t flatten and although the fabric is washable at low temperatures, the better quality fabric simply brushes clean. We recently supplied a number of bean bags for a big society wedding and they were left out overnight in wet grass, and we were amazed that after they dried and were given a quick brush they looked as good as new.
Cotton bean bags
100% cotton is also a popular bean bag choice particularly for children as the fabric can be washed! It is kind on your skin and can even come in organic varieties, which may appeal to some customers. The thing to note on cotton bean bags is that often the shape of the bean bag can be lost, so cotton is usually only suitable for the classically shaped round bean bags.
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Tags: Bean Bags, design, fabric, manufacture, quality
