Fibre encyclopedia
Wool
Also called wool · wol · merino · virgin wool · wol murni · WO · WV · merino wool · wol merino
Protein fibre from a sheep fleece, with scales on the surface and a natural crimp. It holds heat while damp, and it felts under heat and rubbing.
Class
Natural
Comes from
From an animal
Where it comes from
European labelling rules use the name wool for the fleece of sheep and lambs, and name other animal fibres individually, which is why cashmere and alpaca appear under their own names rather than under 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
Holds up to ordinary rubbing
The crimp in wool holds air between the fibres, and air is what holds heat, so a loosely spun wool is warmer than a tightly spun one of the same weight. European labelling rules give wool the highest agreed moisture allowance of the common clothing fibres in that table, which is a way of saying how much water it holds before the surface feels wet. The surface scales are what makes it felt: heat, water and rubbing together lock the scales into each other, and the shrinkage that follows does not come back out.
Care
- Wash cool by hand, or on a wool cycle that does not agitate.
- Never wring, and never dry in a hot machine.
- Dry flat. A wet wool knit stretches under its own weight on a hanger.
- Air it between wearings instead of washing every time.
Machine-washable wool has usually had the scales removed by chlorination or covered with a resin, and the label states neither.
End of life
Recycling route
Mechanical recycling
Wool has one of the older mechanical recycling traditions in textiles: the cloth is shredded back to fibre and respun, and the fibre shortens each time. Sorting by colour keeps the re-dyeing step out.
In a blend
Wool blended with a synthetic cannot enter the wool shredding route, which needs a single-fibre input.
Skin notes
Mechanical
Prickle from wool is mechanical, not an allergy, and it tracks fibre diameter. CSIRO work in the 1980s put the threshold at around 30 microns: the more fibre ends above that width, the more often an end presses into the skin instead of bending away. A label that says wool does not give the diameter.
Chemical
Wool is dyed with acid dyes, and moth-resist and shrink-resist finishes are applied to many wool goods. None of them are 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 wool. It does not give the fibre diameter in microns, which is the one number that relates directly to the prickle people describe.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and related labelling, Annex I. Checked 22 August 2026
- Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011, Annex IX, agreed allowances. Checked 22 August 2026
- Garnsworthy and others, 1988, CSIRO work on fabric prickle and fibre diameter
- ISO 3758:2023, Textiles, care labelling code using symbols. Checked 22 August 2026
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.