Added 2026-10-19 from trending overseas buyer search questions. We update this centre daily.
Crocking is the US trade term for colour fastness to rubbing — the resistance of a fabric's colour to transfer onto another surface through friction. The real-world signs are familiar: blue marks on a white sofa from new jeans, dark lines on a light bag strap, or colour on the inside of a pale lining. It is about transfer during wear, not during washing, which is why a care label alone does not prevent it.
A Crockmeter does the work. A square of standard white cotton rubbing cloth is mounted on a finger (16 mm diameter) that presses on the specimen with a set force of 9 N (about 900 g) and rubs back and forth for 10 strokes along a track of roughly 100–104 mm, at about one stroke per second. The white cloth is then graded against the Grey Scale for Staining.
The test is run twice — dry and wet — and, for woven fabrics, in both the warp and weft directions (face and back for knits), because yarn density and float length change how much surface dye is available to move.
Two separate results, never one "rubbing grade". In the wet test the cloth is wetted to a controlled moisture level (AATCC specifies 65 ± 5% pickup; ISO 105-X12 uses roughly 95–100%). Moisture mobilises loosely held, unfixed or hydrolysed dye and loose pigment far more aggressively than dry friction, so the wet grade is almost always about 0.5 to 1 grade lower than the dry grade on the same fabric. Collapsing the two into a single number hides the failure mode buyers actually meet.
The stained cloth is rated from 5 (no visible transfer) down to 1 (heavy transfer), with half-grade steps where staining falls between steps. There is no universal pass mark — the acceptable grade follows the buyer's specification, the shade depth and the end use. Commonly cited apparel thresholds (use only as a starting point, not a rule):
| Segment | Dry | Wet |
|---|---|---|
| Mass-market retail | 3–4 | 3 |
| Mid-market brands | 4 | 3–4 |
| Luxury / dark outerwear | 4–5 | 4 |
Many buyers treat Grade 3 dry / 2 wet as a fail for outerwear and dark shades regardless of how the bolt looks.
The fix is mostly a dyeing-and-finishing exercise: thorough wash-off and soaping after dyeing, optimised fixation, a suitable fixing agent where the buyer's chemical rules allow, full curing of pigment prints, singeing or controlled brushing, and a compatible softener. One caution: always re-test after a change, because an improvement in rubbing can shift shade, hand feel or light fastness.
State these explicitly so two mills are compared on the same basis:
As an integrated woven mill — yarn dyeing → weaving → fabric dyeing → printing → finishing on one site — we control the dyeing and finishing steps that decide rubbing fastness in-house. We test dry and wet rubbing on bulk fabric to the buyer's named method and record the grades. The specific achievable grade for a given construction and colourway is confirmed in writing at enquiry (available on request). For the general grading background, see our colour fastness guide; to set a requirement for your order, open a quote request.
No. Crocking measures colour transfer through dry or wet rubbing during wear; wash fastness measures colour change and staining under a laundering procedure (a different ISO/AATCC method). A fabric can pass one and fail the other.
Moisture mobilises loosely held or unfixed dye and surface pigment far more than dry friction, so the white cloth picks up more colour. Expect wet to be roughly 0.5 to 1 grade below dry on the same fabric.
There is no universal pass. Acceptable grades depend on your method, dry vs wet, shade depth and end use — many apparel buyers ask for Grade 4 dry / Grade 3 wet, but dark outerwear and some markets demand higher. State the exact requirement in the purchase order.
Not directly. Those are chemical-safety and fibre-source standards; crocking is a physical colour-fastness performance test. Some eco standards set their own minimum fastness thresholds, but crocking is verified by the AATCC/ISO rubbing test, not by the certificate. We confirm achievable grades per order.