Ah! Ascesis: like an ascetic--what one engages in, that is. Noumenal I had heard of.
I may have come across a polyester as fine as she described, but certainly not very often. And the way clothing is labeled, an untrained eye has no clue to what the fabric will actually be like. They seem to use the
term "cotton/polyester" or its reverse pretty widely, and the feels of the fabrics that have these labels also varies widely. Polyester was touted as nearly a miracle fabric when it came out, because of not needing to be ironed, but it didn't take consumers very long to realize it's as uncomfortable as heck because it doesn't "breathe". Yuck.