It’s not the country of origin of your cotton T that makes it scratchy or rough, you can get scratchy American cotton tees as well, in fact more often than not. What makes the “hand” of a cotton t-shirt (how it feels on your skin) is the cotton processing method. There are three common ways to turn rough cotton into thread/yarn.
The first is called Open Ended Carding, this is cheapest and the most common way and results in rougher feeling shirts. The loose cotton fibers are tangled and bent all sorts of ways. The carding process takes a a few dozen and wraps them with one fiber perpendicularly so they are a straight bundle. The second method is Ring Spun cotton. In this method all of the cotton fibers are spun, softened and straightened out before making the thread. These are your soft cotton shirts. The third and premium method is Combed Ring Spun cotton, the same as ring spun but the fibers are combed first to removed broken pieces and small fibers making for the softest smoothest cotton.
So you can get a t-shirt you will love that is made in India, Pakistan or China, The #3, #4, #1 producers of cotton (we’re #2 and export most of ours) or one you hate, it all depends on the specs. Walmart is about low price and so though they sell some nice fabric cotton T’s (usually the womens ones), the bulk of what they sell will be carded cotton.
Oh yeah did I mention I sell t-shirts for a living? I am not just a some guy with a cotton fetish.
Interesting explanation.
Thanks....