washing and tailorability where the tendency of materials especially knitted materials to curl and roll on cutting or distort on sewing is essentially eliminated 2 for the treatment of formed paper products to provide in particular papers of greater tear and burst strength and abrasion resistance or for the formation of paper products of improved properties where a composition according to the invention is added to the cellulose fibre slurry 3 for the treatment of fabrics which may be in the form of fibrous webs filaments or layered combinations to give chemically bonded non woven fabrics of improved properties especially strength compositions of the invention may also be applied to mechanically bonded non wovens for the purpose of improving in particular their strength and abrasion resistance by suitable selection of the class 1 or 2 materials properties in addition to the above such as flame resistance water and oil repellency and soiling resistance can be imparted to the material the compositions of the present invention find particular advantage in imparting a high level of shrink resistance to materials comprises wholly or partially of keratinous fibres such compositions have one or more of the following advantages over shrinkresist treatments of the prior art i application from aqueous systems in contrast to certain prior art treatments e g those based on the use of polyisocyanates alone e g british patent nos 1062564 and 1161748 where it is necessary to apply from non aqueous solvent in order to prevent premature reaction with water ii the stability of compositions of the present invention in contrast to compositions of the prior art which are unstable and must be used immediately as.