Bamboo is more absorbent and “can hold more moisture without feeling wet, compared to cotton,” Majid Sarmadi, textile expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
So are these sheets actually bamboo? Technically, yes. They’re made from the bamboo plant, but that’s not the full picture. Sarmadi compared the process of creating bamboo rayon to making spaghetti noodles. “When you make spaghetti, it is 100% wheat, but it’s in a different shape,” Sarmadi said. In short, you grind wheat into flour, then mix it with other ingredients to create dough. So, think of bamboo cellulose as wheat. There are different ways to extract and treat it, but the cellulose eventually becomes the yarn you weave into fabric. The result is far different from bamboo stock, but it’s still part of the origin.