Private Label · Substrate

Spunlace Nonwoven Wipes

We manufacture spunlace nonwoven wipes and supply the substrate itself — hydroentangled viscose, polyester and lyocell blends from 30 to 90 gsm, bonded with water rather than with a chemical binder. This is the material page behind every other product on this site, and the one converters and brand owners actually need.

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All Dry Wipes

NO CHEMICAL BINDER · 30–90 gsm · OEKO-TEX AVAILABLE · MADE IN THE USA

Private label spunlace nonwoven wipe substrate manufactured by Phoenix Wipes

Process

Hydroentanglement

Fibres

Viscose, PET, lyocell

Weight range

30–90 gsm

Binder

None

How it works

Spunlace, spunbond, airlaid and meltblown — what each one is for

Nonwoven is a manufacturing process rather than a material, and the four processes behind almost every wipe on the market produce genuinely different fabrics. Spunlace (hydroentangled) fires high-pressure water jets through a fibre web so the fibres knot around each other — soft, strong, drapeable, no binder, and the reason it is the default for anything touching skin or optics. Spunbond extrudes and thermally bonds polymer filament: cheap and strong, but stiff and non-absorbent, which is why it makes bags and gowns rather than wipes.

Airlaid lays cellulose fibre in an air stream and bonds it with latex or heat: very absorbent and bulky, cheaper than spunlace, and it sheds more — good for industrial capacity, poor for a lens. Meltblown produces ultra-fine fibres for filtration, not wiping. If someone offers you a “nonwoven wipe” without saying which process, the answer is almost always the cheapest one that will pass.

Within spunlace, the fibre blend is where a product is actually designed. Viscose is soft, wets out in under two seconds and is highly absorbent, but loses more than half its strength wet. Polyester holds strength, resists solvent and sheds less, but feels synthetic and absorbs poorly. Lyocell sits between them with a better environmental story and a higher price. So: skin contact goes viscose-rich, patient care and general wiping go 50/50, solvent and low-particle work go polyester-rich. Basis weight sets thickness and capacity rather than strength — a 30 gsm sheet for lens wipes, 90 gsm for a floor or exterior sheet.

At a glance

✓Hydroentangled — bonded by water, with no latex or thermal binder

✓Viscose, polyester and lyocell in any ratio, 30–90 gsm

✓Plain, dot, wave, apertured and cross-lapped structures

✓OEKO-TEX Standard 100 and FSC-certified viscose available

✓Supplied as parent roll, converted sheets, or finished packs

Not: a flushable or dispersible substrate — those are a separate technology, and spunlace is deliberately the opposite.

Applications

Who buys spunlace substrate

The buyer here is technical, and the sale is usually a specification conversation rather than a catalogue order.

Wet wipe converters

Companies with their own saturation and packing lines who need substrate to a specification and a reliable domestic lead time.

Private label brand owners

Brands specifying their own substrate rather than accepting whatever a contract packer happens to run.

Medical device and kit assemblers

Where the substrate is a component in a documented assembly and has to be traceable.

Cosmetic and personal care formulators

Matching a fabric to a serum or a cleanser, where wet-out speed and hand feel are part of the product experience.

Industrial and cleanroom distributors

Buying polyester-rich grades against a particle specification.

Product developers at prototype stage

Short substrate runs to test hand feel and saturation before committing to tooling.

Specifications

Spunlace substrate specifications

This is the full envelope. A finished product uses one point inside it, and choosing that point is most of the product design.

Process	Hydroentanglement (spunlace)
Fibres	Viscose, polyester (PET), lyocell, cotton blends
Basis weight	30–90 gsm
Blend ratios	Any ratio; common 100/0, 70/30, 50/50, 30/70
Structures	Plain, dot emboss, wave emboss, apertured, cross-lapped
Absorbency	4–9× own weight, blend dependent
Wet strength	45–85% of dry tensile, blend dependent
Wet-out time	Under 2 s (viscose) to 8 s (polyester-rich)
Binder content	None
Certification	OEKO-TEX Standard 100; FSC-certified viscose
Supplied as	Parent roll, slit roll, converted sheet, finished pack
MOQ	Flexible — prototype runs through to container volume

Packaging formats

Single sachet1 wipe per sealed sachet
Interfolded pack50–150 sheets, pop-up dispensing
Flat pack25–100 sheets, poly-wrapped
RollPerforated, 100–500 sheets
Dispenser bucketCentre-feed roll for wet systems
Bulk caseCustom count, master-carton labelled

Dry wipes are bought by the case far more often than by the pack, so the master carton, the count accuracy and the dispensing method usually matter more than the artwork. We supply interfolded, roll and centre-feed formats alongside retail packs, and we will match an existing dispenser if you send us one.

Comparison

How the substrate maps to the finished range

Every product in our dry range is one point in the envelope above. This table is the map between them.

Product	Substrate	Bonding	Key property	Typical use
Lint-Free Wipes	Polyester / cellulose blend, 55 gsm	Hydroentangled	Ultra-low particle shed	Optics, electronics, finishing
Dry Cleansing Cloths	Viscose spunlace, 45 gsm	Hydroentangled	Soft, wets out instantly	Personal and infant care
Disposable Washcloths	Viscose / PET spunlace, 60 gsm	Hydroentangled	High wet strength, large format	Adult and patient care
Optical & Lens Wipes	Microfibre-blend, 30 gsm	Hydroentangled	Non-abrasive, coating safe	Eyewear, optics, instruments
Industrial Dry Wipes	Polypropylene / cellulose, 80 gsm	Needlepunch or airlaid	High absorbency, solvent resistant	Workshops and paint shops
Spunlace Nonwoven WipesThis page	Viscose, PET, lyocell, 30–90 gsm	Hydroentangled	No chemical binder	Converters and private label
Dry Wipes for Wet Systems	Specified to your chemistry	Hydroentangled or airlaid	Unsaturated, dispenser-ready	In-house saturation systems
Dry Sterile Wipes	Sterile nonwoven	Hydroentangled, gamma-irradiated	SAL 10⁻⁶	Clinical procedures and wound care

Spunlace nonwoven substrate roll handling and converting in the USA

Private Label & OEM

Specify the fabric before you specify the formula

Most private-label wipe projects choose the chemistry first and inherit whatever substrate the packer runs, then spend months trying to fix a hand-feel or strength complaint with formulation changes that cannot fix it. Choosing the fabric first is faster and cheaper. We will send a substrate sample set against your application before any formulation work starts.

✓Substrate sample set matched to your application, not a generic swatch book

✓Fibre ratio, weight and structure specified independently

✓OEKO-TEX and FSC documentation where positioning requires it

✓Parent roll, slit roll or converted sheet supply

✓FOB, EXW and DDP terms — we handle the paperwork

FAQ

Spunlace nonwoven FAQ

What is spunlace and how is it different from other nonwovens?

Spunlace, or hydroentangled, fabric is bonded by firing high-pressure water jets through a fibre web so the fibres physically knot around each other — no adhesive, no thermal spot bonding. That is what makes it soft, drapeable, strong and low-shedding, and why it is the default substrate for wipes that touch skin or optics. Spunbond is thermally bonded filament: strong, stiff, non-absorbent. Airlaid is cellulose bonded with latex: very absorbent, bulky, sheds more. Meltblown is for filtration, not wiping.

Which fibre blend should I choose?

Work backwards from the contact surface. Skin contact goes viscose-rich, because viscose wets out in under two seconds and drapes softly. General wiping and patient care go around 50/50, which buys wet strength without a synthetic feel. Solvent work and low-particle applications go polyester-rich, because polyester resists solvent, holds strength wet and sheds less. Lyocell substitutes for viscose where the environmental story justifies the cost.

Does basis weight determine strength?

Not directly — it determines thickness, bulk and how much liquid the sheet carries. Strength comes from fibre type, fibre length and how aggressively the web is entangled. That is why a 30 gsm polyester-rich lens wipe can be stronger in the hand than a 55 gsm viscose cloth. Specifying weight alone is the most common substrate mistake we see.

Is spunlace biodegradable or flushable?

Biodegradable depends entirely on the fibre: 100% viscose or lyocell is cellulosic and will biodegrade under the right conditions; any polyester content will not. Flushable is a different and stricter question — it requires a dispersible substrate engineered to break apart in water, which is the opposite of the wet strength spunlace is chosen for. A viscose spunlace is not flushable, and labelling one as flushable is a genuine problem.

Can you supply substrate rather than finished wipes?

Yes — parent rolls, slit rolls and converted sheets, to your fibre, weight and structure specification. Converters and brand owners with their own saturation lines are a real part of what we do, and domestic lead times are usually the reason they move to us. Pair this with our dry wipes for wet systems page if you saturate in-house.

Can you run a small trial before we commit?

Yes, and you should. A substrate sample set against your actual application — with your solution on it, at your saturation, in your hand — answers questions in a week that a specification sheet cannot answer at all. Prototype runs are deliberately part of how we work, because the alternative is a container of fabric that feels wrong.