How can I tell if a saree is real silk?

The burn test is the only reliable one you can do at home: a few threads from the pallu edge, and real silk burns to a brittle ash that smells of burnt hair, while polyester melts into a hard bead and smells of chemicals. Before buying, the signals are a silk mark on the listing, a price that makes sense for the weight, and the way the fabric changes colour as it turns in the light.

Start with the price, because it rules out most of the question. A handwoven Kanjivaram or Banarasi in pure silk with real zari has months of loom time and precious metal thread in it, and it cannot be made for thirty dollars. A saree at that price is art silk, which is the Indian trade term for artificial silk and means viscose or polyester. Art silk is not a scam and a good one drapes well, but it should be described as what it is, and the listing on any honest store will say.

India has a formal answer to this: the Silk Mark, a hologram label issued by the Silk Mark Organisation of India certifying pure natural silk. A saree carrying it has been tested. The absence of one does not prove anything, since plenty of small weavers do not register, but its presence is real evidence rather than a marketing word.

By eye and hand, real silk changes colour as it moves, because the triangular cross section of the fibre refracts light differently at different angles. Polyester is uniformly shiny from every angle. Silk warms quickly in your closed hand; synthetics stay cool. Real silk creases and the crease falls out; polyester resists creasing and holds any crease it does take. And a handwoven saree has small irregularities in the weave, which is the tell that a machine did not make it.

The burn test settles it, and it costs a few threads from the inside edge of the pallu where nobody will see. Silk burns slowly, self extinguishes, smells exactly like burnt hair, and leaves a black ash that crumbles between your fingers. Polyester melts rather than burns, smells acrid and plasticky, and leaves a hard bead you cannot crush. Cotton burns fast, smells of burning paper, and leaves soft grey ash. Do it over a sink.

Where we stand on this: our listings carry the description from the maker, and where a saree is art silk we say art silk. We are not in a position to laboratory test 129,000 products, so if the fibre matters to you for a specific piece, email us before you order and we will go back to the supplier and ask rather than guess.

Related questions

What is art silk?

Artificial silk, which in Indian listings means viscose, rayon or polyester woven to look like silk. It is a legitimate and much cheaper fabric. The problem is only when a listing calls it silk without the qualifier.

Does the Silk Mark guarantee it is pure silk?

The Silk Mark is a hologram label from the Silk Mark Organisation of India certifying natural silk, and it is meaningful. Its absence proves less, because many small weavers never register with the scheme.

Is real zari actually gold?

Traditional zari is silver thread with a gold wash wound on silk. Most modern zari is metallic polyester, sometimes called tested zari when it is silver based. Genuine gold and silver zari is heavy, expensive, and named as such.

How should a silk saree be stored?

Folded in cotton or muslin rather than plastic, away from light, and refolded along different lines once or twice a year. Silk left folded on the same crease for years splits along it, and plastic traps moisture.