Peel-ply vs nylon and breather fabric vs paper towel

When I first started researching how to do CF work I pretty much only read a couple of bike builders websites and blogs and got info from CF supplier websites. I quickly assumed that most of the materials required were specifically created for CF work. This includes the peel-ply which is the nylon fabric that you lay directly on top of your wetted CF and epoxy. As the epoxy cures, this fabric creates a slightly rough finish so the next layer will have good surface to adhere to. As well, the PP does not stick to the CF after it is cured and with a bit of persuasion, peels off. The other characteristic is the PP allows excess epoxy to soak through so you don't get any extra epoxy in your layer. The excess is pulled through the PP by the vacuum (or other pressure if you used a wrapping pressure) and is soaked up by a breather fabric. This leads me to other mysterious material that at first seemed specifically created just for CF work. Breather fabric is a polyester batting, something like you would see in a cheap blanket. This material serves two purposes when vacuum bagging. First it allows the air to be pulled out from the entire bag by the vacuum and second, it soaks up the excess epoxy that is pulled out through the PP.
I ordered my PP and breather from CF supply companies, and although they weren't overly expensive, they did cost a bit extra to get because I paid shipping and a brokerage fee to get them into Canada from the US.
Last week I did some reading on a RC airplane bulletin board and learned that many in that community use regular nylon from the fabric store as PP and paper towel as breather. On the weekend I went to the fabric store and bought some beautiful pink nylon from the clearance bin and put a roll of paper towel in the workshop to try as breather. Last night when I did my swing arm layup I threw together a balsa and scrap CF piece into the vacuum bag. I wrapped it with the pink nylon and used paper towel as breather. This morning when I took it out of the vacuum the nylon peeled off very easily and the paper towel was hardened with epoxy the same way the polyester was. A successful experiment and money will be saved in the future!!