Why is cotton more absorbent?

Cotton is more absorbent because it has tiny pockets that can catch and hold water like a sponge.

Imagine you have a sponge, when you dip it in water, it soaks up the water because it has lots of little spaces inside. Cotton works kind of like that sponge. It’s made of long, thin fibers that act like tiny straws. When water touches them, it slips into these straws, and the water molecules stick to the sides of the straws as they move in.

Now imagine you have two sponges, one is a regular sponge, and the other has even more little straws inside. The one with more straws can hold more water because it has more places for the water to go. Cotton fibers are like those extra-straw sponges, they have lots of space for water to flow in and stay put.

That’s why cotton is so good at absorbing things like sweat or spilled juice, it just keeps letting more and more water into its tiny straw-like pockets!