Greener approaches for hydrophobic treatment of cotton fabric were studied. In the first method, fatty acid was grafted onto cotton (cellulose) fiber surface to decrease the surface energy. Acetic anhydride was used to facilitate the reactivity. Microwave heating, an energy efficient method, was used to reach the reaction temperature. The ‘green’ method developed here resulted in hydrophobic cotton fabric with a water contact angle of 137.48o (±2.79). In addition, it was shown that the hydrophobicity lasted for 37 cycles of laboratory laundry washes. A second method involved using of amine-silica nanoparticles to increase the surface roughness of cotton fabric. The effects of attaching single or dual size nanoparticles as well as chemical and physical attachment of particles onto cotton fiber surface were studied. Cotton fabric with deposited particles was further crosslinked to obtain possible ‘permanent’ surface topography. Different crosslinkers were used to test wash durability of final products. Resulting cotton fabrics were treated by fatty acid hydrophobic treatment, water contact angle as high as 153.41o (±2.33) was achieved. These fabrics with water contact angles of greater than 150 o can be considered as superhydrophobic. Resulting crosslinked and hydrophobic cotton fabric allowed 24 cycles of laboratory laundering without the loss of hydrophobicity.