This brings us to another statement that has to be answered with a 'but'. Even though animal wool is a delicate fibre that cannot be put in the washing machine with every pair of jeans and socks, there are ways to make machine care easier.
In this post of my #YarnWhisper series, I would like to give you a brief insight into the fibre care of animal wool and what you should look out for if you don't want to miss out on the machine wash.
On the one hand, there is the option of switching to a wool with a different composition right from the start, namely plant fibre or synthetic yarns. While these are often easier to care for, they also have their advantages and disadvantages. You can check out my post on different seasonal yarns where you will find everything explained in detail.
If you want to stick to animal products, you have to pay attention to one particular note on the banderole of the ball of yarn: superwash.
And what does that mean?
Well in a nutshell superwash is a process in which wool is treated with an acid bath and chlorine to make it machine-washable.
If you look at a wool yarn very closely, you can see that there are many small fibres sticking out of it. These fibres often cause your woollen garments to become matted if they are not washed properly. Through the chlorine treatment, these fibres are first smoothed so that they can no longer interlock as extremely as they did before.
Further, the wool is then coated with a polymer layer. This completely chemically seals the yarn. Since polymer is machine washable, we are then able to put our knits made from superwash treated wool in the washing machine. The natural wool fibre itself would be destroyed under the high temperatures in the machine during washing, usually causing the garment to shrink.
Now the wool can be put in the machine on the gentle wash cycle up to 40°, making it easier for us to care for it.
Even though this procedure can make a lot of things easier, it should still be remembered that it is a chemical process. Not only is our work made easier, but unfortunately a natural fibre also loses additional positive properties that it brings with it. In fact, natural animal wool, i.e. non-superwash yarn, brings with it an extremely warming effect, it is also more water-repellent and biodegradable.
The process removes the naturally occurring lanolin layer of the wool fibres, which brings with it a certain lotus effect. In addition, the polymer layer encloses the air pockets in the fibre, which is why the super warming effect of wool is weakened. If you want to know more about these air pockets, their effect and why they have an insulating effect, you can read about it in another YarnWhisper blog post of mine.
If you prefer to be more resource-conscious, you should rather go for non-superwash yarn and accept the more complex care. The production of these yarns is still more environmentally friendly and sustainable, as the chemical process is saved. You should also bear in mind that animal wool rarely needs to be washed anyway, as it takes on very few odours. So it is quite sufficient to wash your knitwear once a season before it goes back into the wardrobe - if it is not absolutely necessary more often. By washing less often, these knits use less water and are therefore more environmentally friendly.
Unfortunately, the superwash effect does not last forever either. After some time, the effect is somewhat lost as the polymer layer wears off.
Those who opt for superwash should also be aware that the longevity of the knitwear, which animal wool often brings, is unfortunately also weakend here. This is because removing and smoothing the outermost layer of fibres prevents these very fibres from interlocking to give the whole thing structure and better support.
Nevertheless, superwash wool can prove very useful for garments that are subjected to very high levels of wear and tear, such as socks or children's clothing. After all, who wants to have to wash their socks by hand every time? There is another positive aspect: the colour. Due to the smoothing process, the colour rendering of the yarn is much brighter than that of natural, dyed fibres. You can see this very well in the Malabrigo range, which has beautiful superwash and non-superwash wool.
So you should always think carefully about which yarn is best suited for your project. I hope I have given you some food for thought! In the end, everyone should think for themselves about which arguments outweigh the others. Even though I personally try to act ecologically and environmentally conscious, I only want to encourage you to weigh things up for yourself and not persuade anyone to take action.
Have a great week, see you in the next #YarnWhisper!
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