After you've purchased a silk product from one of the various online store platforms (Amazon, TikTok, or Google), it's hard to tell if the product is silk by looking at the photos. After testing all of our natural and fake silks, we have found the five most trusted tests:
A silk scarf can cost upwards of $100, and you want to save money on a fake silk-just like you don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a fake Louis Vuitton bag. Silk retains moisture in your skin and hair, you can keep your hairstyle in place, and you can wear silk scarves with a variety of outfits-if it's fake silk, then everything changes. You can learn more about why you need to buy silk by checking out the benefits of silk nightcaps.
If a product is the real silk, the merchant usually states the product's fabric in the product details. You can check if the product is real silk by using the table below:
| Name | Real Or Fake Silk |
| Silky Satin | Fake |
| Silk Satin | Real |
| Satin Pillowcase | Fake |
| Satin Bonnet | Fake |
| Silk Bonnet | Real |
| Mulberry Silk | Real |
| 100% Silk | Real |
| Silk Twill | Real |
| Satin with silky texture | Fake |
I hate to say it, but the truth is that a product at a very low price must not be the real silk. Some dishonest merchants use polyester satin (imitated silk) to mark up the items very cheaply. Silk is 100% from nature, and the complexity of the production process means that it is relatively expensive.
UR Silk has summarized the prices of some typical silk products on the market (whether in online shops or local stores), so if you are buying a product below the price in the price list, you need to wonder if you are buying the real one.
| Product Name | Price |
| 90*90 cm Silk Scarf | $80 |
| Standard Size Silk Pillowcase | $40 |
| Silk Bonnet | $40 |
| 5 PCs Silk Scrunchies | $20 |
| Silk Blanket | $120 |
| Silk Sleepwear, Pajamas & Kimonos | $150 |
| Silk Robes | $80 |
| Silk Headbands | $20 |
Based on the price list, the Amazon Product "silky satin pillowcase" is definitely not a silk pillowcase. They are using polyester satin.
Hand feel is a quick first check, but it cannot prove an item is silk. Silk has a smooth feel; you can try placing the fabric on the back of your hand; if it slowly slides off, it may be silk, but polyester satin slides off too. If you need to check if an item is silk, we recommend purchasing a UR Silk silk scarf to differentiate between our silk scarves and the item in your hand.
Please note: Different silk fabrics have different hand feel; you can read the hand feels of silk fabrics or order free samples from UR Silk to get a feel for different silk fabrics.
Real silk produces a smell similar to that of burnt hair when it burns. Because silk is a protein - the most component of hair is also a protein, and the ashes, after burning, are black.
Fake silk burns with a pungent plastic odor that is easy to recognize and doesn't produce ash. The burning fabrics test method destroys the original silk and is dangerous when burning, so please use this method cautiously.
You can see how the silk & satin burning looks like:
If you don't want to damage the item or can't tell if the object is real silk, then UR Silk suggests taking the fabric to a professional garments and Apparel Testing organization. We've listed some of them for your reference.
You can specify the fabric you want to test and get a quote. Hopefully everyone's product is real silk!
You may have found some "easy" ways when you googled "how to tell if a product is a real silk." In fact, some of these methods will not work. Common misjudgments are looking at the texture, examine the lustre of the material, and through a wedding ring.
There are dozens of silk fabrics, including silk CDC, silk twill, silk satin, silk chiffon, etc. You need to be an industry practitioner, or it is hard to tell if a product is silk by the woven. We used two photos to see if you can tell pure silk.
Can you tell if a product is silk by its weave? Of course not!
Answer: Both pictures are 100% silk; one is silk habotai, and the other is silk chiffon!
As UR Silk mentioned, there are many kinds of silk, and some fabrics that look thin or different can be pure silk.
You must understand that shiny fabrics don't mean silk - satin fabrics are just as shiny. Let's look at these two pictures:
Can you tell if that's pure silk?
Answer: the picture on the left is polyester satin, and the right is silk satin. The fabric on the right is real silk.
Obviously, you can hardly identify the fabric by the sheen. All you know is that the fabric is shiny, and that's it.
You may have seen the use of wedding rings on many websites to test if a product is pure silk, and if an item can be compressed and slid through the ring, you can tell it. In fact, this method will not work because different types of silk are of various thicknesses.
22 momme silk satin is a thicker silk, nearly three times thicker than 8 momme's silk chiffon. 22 momme silk satin is denser than eight momme's silk chiffon. You can't tell that a silk satin isn't silk because it won't fit through a wedding ring (Blissy, Slip, and other famous silk pillowcase brands use 22 momme silk satin).
We recommend that you buy real silk at UR Silk, which we founded with a simple goal: to produce and sell silk products that people can afford. Learn more about our custom silk scarves, pillowcases, headbands, and other real silk products.