Fibre encyclopedia
Cashmere
Also called cashmere · kasmir · WS
The fine undercoat of the cashmere goat, combed out rather than shorn. Narrow fibre, short staple, and a surface that pills early.
Class
Natural
Comes from
From an animal
Where it comes from
Cashmere is the soft layer a goat grows under its outer coat for winter, separated from the coarse guard hair after collection. European labelling rules name it separately from wool.
How it feels to wear
Air
Some air moves through the fibre
Water
Takes water into the fibre
Heat
Holds body heat
Stretch
A little stretch of its own
Wear
Wears down sooner under rubbing
Cashmere fibre is narrow, well under the diameter range where prickle begins, and that narrowness is what the hand of the cloth comes from. It is also short, so more fibre ends sit at the surface of the yarn, and those ends are what roll into pills where a sleeve rubs a side.
Care
- Hand wash cool with a neutral soap.
- Dry flat, never on a hanger.
- Take pills off with a comb rather than pulling them.
- Rest a knit a day between wearings so the fibre recovers.
Pilling in the first season is a property of short fibre, and combing it off does not remove fibre the knit needs.
End of life
Recycling route
Mechanical recycling
Cashmere enters the same shredding route as wool where collection is sorted for it, and the fibre is already short before it starts.
In a blend
Cashmere is often blended with wool or with acrylic, and the blend closes the sorted animal-fibre route.
Skin notes
Mechanical
Fibre diameter sits below the prickle range studied in wool. Guard hair left in the batch does not, and separating it is a processing step rather than a property of the animal.
Chemical
Acid dyes and softening finishes are used on cashmere as on wool, and neither is declared.
If your skin reacts to a garment, a dermatologist and patch testing are what can answer it. A label cannot, and neither can this page.
What the label cannot tell you
The label says cashmere. It does not give the fibre length, and fibre length is the difference between a knit that stays smooth for years and one that pills in its first season.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and related labelling, Annex I. Checked 22 August 2026
- Garnsworthy and others, 1988, CSIRO work on fabric prickle and fibre diameter
Written from primary sources and in our own words. Where a figure could not be traced to a source anyone can open, it is not printed here.
Read the label you are holding
The scan surface reads one care label and names which questions it answers and which it leaves out. A passport says for one specific piece what a label cannot: the composition with its percentages, where the cloth came from, who worked on it, how to repair it and where it goes next.