Noil is the short fiber left over from  spinning silk and is used as a decorative additive for many spinning projects like rovings and yarns. Silk noil is a relatively short fiber, fabric made from noil is weaker and considered less valuable.

Silk noil may also be made from the short fibres, directly sourced from the silkworm cocoons. Rather than the continuous length of silk, shorter fibers, which are generally not used to create high quality silk, are used for silk noil, which has a slightly rough texture. It is relatively weaker and has low resilience. It tends to have very low lustre, which makes it appear more like cotton than silk.