Carded Cotton

Carding untangles and roughly aligns cotton fibers but skips the combing step, so short fibers remain. Carded cotton is the standard, lower-cost input for everyday basics: perfectly serviceable, a little less smooth, and slightly more prone to pilling than combed. It is not a defect — it is a price point. The failure mode is paying a combed-cotton price for a carded-cotton tee, which is why the word matters on a spec sheet. For a rotation of gym and around-the-house tees, carded cotton at a carded-cotton price is the sensible buy.