Changes in cotton fabrics brought about by different swelling agents and different types of finishing procedures have been studied in this work, using a single-step swelling of cotton in the reagent. Cotton fabrics were treated with different alkalis and mixtures of alkalis and other additives and finished with a modified type of 1,3dimethylol-4,5-dihydroxyethylene urea, using wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry technique. Properties generally used to characterize mercerized cotton were selected that are technologically important, such as water retention, shrinkage, stiffness, and crease recovery angle. Water retention method has been used to compare the degree of swelling for different samples. Differences in properties among these samples were observed and some practically important conclusions were arrived at. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.