Enzymatic removal of the noncellulosics on cotton fiber surfaces has been extended from the use of pectinases to that of proteases. Ten proteolytic enzymes or proteases were employed on greige cotton fabrics which were pretreated in 100°C water for 2 seconds twice. Reactions with four of the proteases resulted in significantly improved wettability on cotton fabrics and the resulted wetting behavior is similar or superior to alkaline scoured cotton. Several other proteases also improved the wettability of cotton fabrics, but to lesser extents. The optimized reaction conditions for the most effective proteases afford a range of moderate scouring conditions including neutral to acid (pH 4) media, low temperatures (25^oC to 45^oC), and short reaction times (10 min. to 30 min.). The low temperatures of these protease reactions also lead to less change in fabric thickness and porosity than in the alkaline scoured cotton fabrics .