Modal® is a fine, smooth fiber made from beech trees. An Austrian company, Lenzing, creates Modal® by turning beech wood into pulp, extracting the fiber, and then reconstituting the fiber so that it can be spun into yarn. Modal® is an all-natural fiber, and the beech wood used in Modal® production is from sustainable forestry plantations growing native trees. The byproducts of the manufacturing process are used in other industry applications; for example, leftover wood sugar from processing is used in the manufacture of artificial sweeteners.
The Modal® fibers are extremely smooth and soft, and blending them with cotton helps the yarn to stay soft and vibrantly colored, even after many washes. Shine Sport and Shine Worsted each contain 40% Modal® in their cotton blend, and it’s this fiber that gives them their namesake “shine” and silky texture.