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Mercerization is one of the finishing treatments that often are used to improve the dye uptake properties and increase cotton fabrics' luster. Since comfort is a necessity of clothing and customers desire it more than ever, the finishing treatments that improve some properties of the fabric should not reduce clothing comfort. The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of cold mercerization on the comfort properties of cotton fabrics.

A total of 15 woven fabric samples in different structures were randomly chosen. The samples were divided into two groups: the finished fabrics (i.e. those which were run through singing, desizing, and bleaching processes) and the mercerized fabrics (i.e. samples which underwent the singing, desizing, bleaching and mercerizing processes). The mechanical and thermo‐physiological comfort properties of these two groups were evaluated and results were compared.

The results showed that bending rigidity, shearing rigidity, air permeability, water vapour transmission and thermal resistance increased by cold mercerization. Moreover, frictional restraint, extensibility and wicking decreased. In other words, mercerization can improve some comfort properties of cotton fabrics and weaken the others.

The current literatures don't consider the effect of mercerization on the clothing comfort. The present work intends to evaluate the effect of cold mercerization on the mechanical (tactile) and thermo‐physiological comfort properties of cotton fabrics which are used as summer clothing.