What is a Button made of?
What is a Button made of?
Usually cast polyester resin; the good ones are shell, nut or horn, and you can tell by touch and temperature.
The fastest test for a natural button is temperature: shell, horn and corozo feel cool and take a moment to warm, while polyester and nylon are at room temperature immediately. Shell buttons are also noticeably heavier than plastic and have subtle variations in grain across a card of them. The other giveaway is the way a garment is finished — a spare button and hand-sewn shanks on a jacket suggest the maker paid for materials elsewhere too. Buttonholes are a separate craft: the tiny keyhole shape on a jacket sleeve exists to let the shank of the button sit without straining the fabric.
Component by component
| Part | Material | Why that material |
|---|---|---|
| standard buttons | unsaturated polyester resin, cast in rods and sliced | It can be pigmented and patterned to imitate almost any natural material, then drilled and polished cheaply. |
| cheap buttons | urea or melamine resin, ABS, or nylon | Moulded thermoplastic buttons are the cheapest possible, but they scratch, and ABS ones melt against an iron. |
| shell buttons | mother of pearl, cut from trocas or river mussel shell | Nacre is hard, cool to the touch and iridescent; each button is slightly different because each shell is. |
| corozo | the dried seed of the tagua palm, sometimes called vegetable ivory | It is dense, takes dye deeply and machines like ivory, which is why it is the traditional choice on good tailoring. |
| metal buttons | zinc alloy, brass, or a covered shell over a base | A shank button holds the fabric off the garment so a thick coat can close without the button being levered off. |
Other clothing and kit objects
- Velcro (hook and loop) Two nylon tapes — one of stiff hooks, one of soft loops — copied directly from burdock burrs.
- Leather Animal hide whose collagen has been chemically stabilised so it cannot rot — usually with chromium salts.
- Gore-Tex A stretched PTFE membrane whose pores are far too small for a raindrop and far too big for a water vapour molecule.
- Denim A cotton twill with indigo-dyed warp and undyed weft — the dye sits on the fibre surface, which is why it fades.
- Helmet A hard shell to spread the blow over a crushable polystyrene foam liner that is destroyed by one impact.
- Bulletproof vest Many layers of woven aramid or polyethylene fibre that catch and deform a bullet; rifle threats need a ceramic plate.
- Zip (zipper) Teeth of metal, moulded acetal or nylon coil on a polyester tape, forced together by a wedge inside the slider.
- Synthetic leather A polyurethane or PVC skin on a textile backing — including the plant-based ones, which still need a plastic binder.
- Running shoe A knitted synthetic upper over a foam midsole and rubber outsole — about a dozen materials, all glued together.
- Shoe sole A rubber outsole for grip, a foam midsole for cushioning, and increasingly no clean way to separate them.
- Wetsuit Closed-cell neoprene foam full of nitrogen bubbles, faced with stretch jersey — the gas insulates, not the water.
- Life jacket Closed-cell foam or a CO2-inflated bladder, in a nylon cover — rated in newtons of buoyancy, not in size.
Common questions
- What is a Button made of?
- Usually cast polyester resin; the good ones are shell, nut or horn, and you can tell by touch and temperature.
- What is the standard buttons of a Button made of?
- Unsaturated polyester resin, cast in rods and sliced. It can be pigmented and patterned to imitate almost any natural material, then drilled and polished cheaply.
- What is the cheap buttons of a Button made of?
- Urea or melamine resin, ABS, or nylon. Moulded thermoplastic buttons are the cheapest possible, but they scratch, and ABS ones melt against an iron.
Related pages
- Velcro (hook and loop) Two nylon tapes — one of stiff hooks, one of soft loops — copied directly from burdock burrs.
- Leather Animal hide whose collagen has been chemically stabilised so it cannot rot — usually with chromium salts.
- Gore-Tex A stretched PTFE membrane whose pores are far too small for a raindrop and far too big for a water vapour molecule.
- Denim A cotton twill with indigo-dyed warp and undyed weft — the dye sits on the fibre surface, which is why it fades.
- Helmet A hard shell to spread the blow over a crushable polystyrene foam liner that is destroyed by one impact.
- Bulletproof vest Many layers of woven aramid or polyethylene fibre that catch and deform a bullet; rifle threats need a ceramic plate.
- Zip (zipper) Teeth of metal, moulded acetal or nylon coil on a polyester tape, forced together by a wedge inside the slider.
- Synthetic leather A polyurethane or PVC skin on a textile backing — including the plant-based ones, which still need a plastic binder.
- Pencil Stationery and paper
- Tennis ball Sport and games
- Banknote Around the house
- Golf ball Sport and games
- Paper Stationery and paper
- Glass Building materials
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place