It doesn’t slide through your fingers as smoothly, does it? Now, do the same thing from the other end. Take a piece of your own hair and pull it through your thumb and finger by the root end. This is all about science, so it’s time for a quick science experiment. Your cotton clothes don’t shrink, as much as the thread they are made of returns to its pre-stretched size. The bonds and polymers at the molecular level relax. Throw that cotton fabric in the wash and the stress starts to get relieved. This stresses the hydrogen holding everything together. When cotton fibers are spun into thread, which is then woven into fabric, those fibers and the molecular chains making them up are stretch, pulled, and twisted. Cotton fiber is made up of long molecular chains that are linked end-to-end by hydrogen. Your cotton clothing is made of fabric of threads woven together, which are in turn made up of cotton fibers. It turns out that cotton doesn’t really shrink. Please Return Your Cotton Fiber to Its Original Position While science hasn’t found a way to make these natural fibers shrink-proof, it can explain why the shrinking happens. Some things are beyond technology-at least if you prefer your clothes to be made of natural fibers like cotton or wool. Why is it that we there are still all sorts of clothes on the market that will shrink if not laundered correctly? Our cars can park themselves, and we can play our favorite music or order things online simply by talking to Alexa.