[Womble]

I originally typed this as a reply on Rosemary's yarn thread, but I don't want to hijak the topic so:

Sadly I am allergic to wool

Could be the lanolin, wbf.

I'm confused again! Hasn't the lanolin been removed by the time the wool has become clothing?    I would have thought it's more likely to be the texture, no?

My memory of woollen clothing as a kid was that I kept being presented with hand-me-down items from the kid next door that had been knitted by his gran, and were scratchy as hell. "But she went to so much effort, and it's hardly been worn!" exclaimed my mother. "Presumably because it drew blood?" protested my eight year old self!

I can still imagine Gran going into the wool shop and saying "have you got any of that nice soft lambs wool that they make M&S cardigans out of?"  "No?  That's a shame. Never mind - just give me ten balls of the razor wire stuff I usually get then."

I used to work as a Process Engineer a lanolin factory. The woolgrease was all imported from New Zealand (for some reason it was better quality than UK woolgrease). It went through various purification steps and we turned it into the ingredient that goes into face cream, suncream, E45 etc. The final step was to heat it up using steam injection, whilst maintaining a high level of vacuum. One reason for doing this was to strip off residues of sheep dip which of course weren't wanted in the final product. One of the chemists told me that when people say they're allergic to lanolin, what they're often responding to is the residual pesticides rather than the lanolin itself, which is why they're often fine with the more purified versions. I wish I could remember more now, but it was a long time ago. What I do remember was when we got our first sheep, all I could think was "hmmm, that smell reminds me of my old job!".

I wonder if they still do this, now we use pour-ons instead of dipping?

[devonlady]

My mother, God rest her, swore by lambs wool for babies and small children and knitted day and night to produce small items for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When my babies were fretful and squirmy I knew the cause was their lovingly knitted vest!
As to sheep dip, I was (for once in my life) proved right when I said it was the cause of dreadful depression and various neurological illnesses in farmers and farm workers.

[Fleecewife]

That's really interesting about how they extract and purify the lanolin Womble - thank you for that.

How itchy wool feels next to the skin depends on the micron count of the fibre.  I always hated Shetland wool as a child because that was the itchiest for me.  Now, using our own Shetland fleece, I realise that if you use only the finest parts of a top quality fleece then the resulting yarn, and garments made from that yarn, can be worn comfortably next to the skin.  I have the figure of 18 microns floating around in my head but I really don't remember.
I wouldn't dream of using coarser fleeces next to the skin, always wear something tightly woven such as cotton under a wool jumper for example.   Only the very finest fibres should be used for underwear and for babies clothes in general.  I do have a Herdwick jumper my MiL knitted for me (she was a notable martyr) which I have hardly worn as it itches madly and cuts my throat every time I look to right or left.  That is of course why she knitted it for me    I have worn it instead of a jacket, over several other layers, in very cold but dry winter weather and it's great.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Now it makes sense, i always thought it was any old wool which my skin flared up with, highly sensetive you see. What wool is the best for the skin then?

[lord flynn]

If you are allergic to wool, you are allergic to wool-regardless of the type or how its processed. My OH is allergic to wool in any form and even in the lowest mixes-its a bugger of a job to find cycling base layers that are wool free. He comes out in hives-if he wants to wear a kilt etc he's dosed up to the eyeballs 


If you have an itchy wool garment, washing in white vinegar repeatedly will help or soak in hair conditioner. But it won't help you if your are actually allergic.

[Ina]

I agree - I think it's a highly personal matter what you can or cannot wear next to your skin. I am OK with any kind of wool, underwear and all. On the other hand, acrylic or nylon or any kind of plastic makes my skin creep, even if it is ever so soft!

[doganjo]

See my recent post about Countryfile - put your woollies round your brassicas to keep away slugs 

[SallyintNorth]

We all use to think I was allergic to 'wool', as in the wool yarn my mum bought and used to knit me jumpers.

Now that I spin, I know that I am not allergic to wool at all. I am allergic to something in some of the commercial yarns, but I don't know precisely what.  Could be the dyes they use, or something they've scoured with... but it isn't the wool itself.

I am also allergic to lanolin.  If I wrap fleeces all day, my skin is red and flarey, and I need a bath and clean clothes.

I do spin 'in the grease', but it's not going all up my forearms when I do that, and doesn't cause me a problem.

I am also not allergic to the dyes I use at home, or at least, not the ones I've tried so far.

So it could be ome - or more - of a hundred and one things, wbf.

Wash some sheep's wool - scalding hot water, lots of shampoo or washing up liquid, DO NOT AGITATE, leave 10 minutes, remove WITHOUT AGITATING, rinse in water the same temperature, again without agitating, rinse until all detergent gone, dry - and gently rub the dry, clean fleece wool up and down your arm.  Don't scratch yourself with it if it's rough, just tickle yourself with it like a feather.  If your skin doesn't react, it's not wool you are allergic to.

[Lesley Silvester]

When I had a spinning and weaving workshop, visitors would often say they were allergic to wool and my stock response was, "Are you sure you're not allergic to the chemicals used in scouring and dying wool?" A moment's thought then, "Well, I wasn't allergic to it when I was a child and there were less chemicals." Womble you have confirmed my opinion.


Of course, there were always those visitors who used the allergy card as an excuse to not buy anything. 

[Womble]

Womble you have confirmed my opinion.

Careful though, I was talking about the process for turning brown smelly woolgrease into white non-smelling purified lanolin. I don't know what process the wool itself undergoes, though TBH the chemistry is simple enough (I doubt it's anything more aggressive than caustic washing, which is then easily removed).


How do hand spinners scour wool to remove the grease? I'll bet the industrial process is just a scaled up version.


BTW, we do need to be careful with saying "natural is good, chemicals are bad" - it's FAR more complicated than that.

[Fleecewife]

Oh yes, there are some pretty lethal 'natural' products out there, untested some of them, except by Lucretia Borgia 

[SallyintNorth]

At home we use detergents - either shampoo or washing up liquid, or purpose-made products like Woolite or Power Scour..

The lanolin and any dirt are washed out - actually, not all the dirt is washed out, quite a bit of it is trapped in the tips of the locks, and mostly falls out when picking or combing.

And not everyone washes all the lanolin out - many of us like to leave some in to aid drafting the fibres.  The plied yarn is washed again, which removes the remains of the lanolin - if you use hot enough water and enough detergent, that is.

Bits of hay, grass seeds, and other matter of that type, is not removed by home scouring.

Industrial scouring uses chemicals that, amongst other things, dissolve vegetable matter   .   And I don't just mean washes out any bits of poo left in the fleece,  they actually dissolve hay, grass seeds and so on, so that the scoured wool is free of any contaminants.  But how effectively these chemicals, and the dissolved residues in suspension, are rinsed out, I don't know. 

[SallyintNorth]

So, when your sheep marker fluid says it will wash out... Many of them will not wash out in a domestic situation.  They will not affect the value or usefulness of a fleece to the Wool Board's customers, as industrial scouring will wash them out, but to a handspinner, that's fleece they can't use.

[Womble]

What about the fleece we had that was still absolutely covered in raddle paste seven months after it was er, 'initially applied'  ?  I'm now unsure if that's definitely the colour we want to use next time, or the colour we definitely don't!!

[SallyintNorth]

I can only say try it with some washing up liquid. Womble.  The raddle paste we use washes out fine, but then it has mostly worn off by shearing time.  Branding paint, however, is designed to be weatherproof and last 12 months, and that I cannot wash out at home.