Wool: Staying Warm a Codicil
Oct. 29th, 2026 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
claire_58
You know the world I mean. The sustainable fantasy world where we all live in harmony with nature.
If you’ve read much of my blog you’ll know already that I believe that this world is not something we can attain in our lifetimes. It’s not going to come about through some dramatic mass transformation of humanity into some kind of spiritual super organism. It’s going to come about as those of us who are willing and able to adapt lean into hard times and figure out how to live with in our means in a contracting economy.
The planetary constraints we’ve been ignoring for the last few centuries will force the shift. Most of it, for most people, will be involuntary. Even those of us who can see what’s happening and are trying to get ahead of it will be scrambling most of the time.
That doesn’t mean we should forget about the world to come. Quite the opposite. We need to keep the world we want to create in mind while we are scurrying about downsizing, weatherizing, and figuring out how to keep body and soul together without it costing the earth.
Making that world real is the Grand Quest of our age. Our mission is to bring the fantasy a little closer to reality; to prepare the ground for the seeds of the future; to shift things enough that the next generation can build on what we have learned and preserved, and carry the Quest forward.
The choices we make will have an impact on what’s possible in the future. With that in mind I want advocate for choosing wool specifically and for seeking out and choosing natural materials generally.
This is a contentious topic. Our current relationship with the animals that provide us with food and other important products is an abomination. Those who have very understandably recoiled in horror at the massive suffering and ecological disaster that is industrial meat production have spent decades making the case for avoiding meat and animal products on environmental grounds.
In this issue like many others the choices on offer are limited to two equally problematic extreme positions. Business as usual ignores the moral and ecological disaster that is industrial farming and rejecting animal foods and other animal products altogether just lands us in a different environmental quagmire.
Both options are based on the illusion of human exceptionalism. The first is the arrogance of exploitation. We can do whatever we like because our needs come first. The suffering we cause and the damage done doesn’t matter.
The second is false humility and suicidal empathy. Our needs come last. We are undeserving. We need to limit ourselves and make ourselves small. The error here is thinking that this is the only ecologically sound option. It’s not.
Animal foods and animal products are not the real problem.
The problem is Industrial Ag. Both animal and plant production using these methods are ecologically disastrous. A plant based food system that relies on industrial mono crop production and global commodity supply chains is not better for the environment.
As I have written previously
Industrial Ag is inherently destructive. It displaces all the other plants and animals that inhabit the space. It poisons the air and water and exhausts the land. Industrial food production is an energy sink.4 It’s just as extractive as strip mining5 and clearcut logging and the scale is mind boggling. Turning all these resources into global commodities serves the few at the expense of everyone and everything else.
4 It takes c.7 calories of fossil fuel energy to deliver one calorie of food to your plate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-expended-in-producing-and-delivering-one-food-calorie-Approximately-73-calories_fig1_303895662
5 An estimated 75 giga-tonnes of topsoil is dislodged from cropland every year. https://doi.org/10.1130/B25899.1 Every meal we eat costs about 10kg of soil.
Worse, rejecting animal products means relying more heavily on industrialization to produce synthetic alternatives and that causes even more undesirable environmental impacts.
If you are vegetarian for religious or health reasons or what ever other personal reasons you may have, great. I respect your choice and support your right to choose. But if you are doing it because you think it’s a better choice for the environment I would invite you to think more deeply about the impact of that choice.
There is a third option
The shift to regenerative agricultural practices is one of the biggest and most promising changes happening right now. It has already had a dramatic beneficial impact on vast acreages of land all over the world and on farmers. Its benefits have been proven again and again.
Regenerative systems of production using animals in rotation with plant crops are spreading organically, farmer to farmer, as farmers and ranchers all over the world realize the benefits to the land and to their own livelihoods.
Holistic Range Management, using grazing animals like sheep and cattle to restore land and reverse the desertification has been one of the few real environmental wins of the last few decades.
Unfortunately most of the wool and the other animal products available to us are still products of the industrial system but choosing wool is still the best ways we can support this transition.
Supporting local farmers and ranchers is essential even as economic contraction starts to pinch. The pressures on farms and farmers, particularly on small family farms, from climate change to land grabs and battles over water rights, is another one of our many complex and potentially disastrous problems.
Choose Wool
The positive impacts of choosing wool and natural products including other animal products cannot be overstated.
The manufacture of synthetic clothing, even plant based synthetic, is an ecological nightmare that consumes vast amounts of water,1 pollutes the air, and endangers the factory workers and the communities that live nearby.
There’s also the problem of the micro plastic pollution it generates when washed.
If synthetics make up any part of your wardrobe I highly recommend you seriously consider investing in a “guppyfriend” wash bag to contain the micro-plastics these clothes inevitable produce.
Oil based synthetic fabrics easily absorb the oils from your skin and they are difficult to clean even with hot water and harsh detergents. They become permanently stinky fairly quickly. Once a synthetic garment is unwearable it’s garbage forever.
Worse, when you’re sweating and your pores are open your body will readily reabsorb hormonally active chemicals from these fabrics. This isn’t just a problem for women. Endocrine disruptors can affect your energy, mood, libido, stress response, and blood sugar levels. Many of them are estrogenic which means they can have a feminizing effect on boys and trigger early onset puberty in girls.2
Wool is the quintessential high performance fibre. It outperforms any synthetic fabrics in every way. Synthetic fibres are “quick dry” but have almost nothing else to recommend them.
Wool is naturally odour resistant and breathable. It absorbs the sweat and toxins coming out of your skin and wicks them away from your body.
It’s fire resistant and it stays warm even when it’s wet. It lasts much longer than other kinds of fabric too and its end of life uses include insulation, stuffing for cushions, and mulch in the garden.
It’s the ultimate easy care fabric
So much has been made of the fact that wool isn’t easy to wash that we’ve forgotten that it rarely needs washing. Most wool garments do fine with regular airing, brushing, and occasionally, spot cleaning. It doesn’t get much easier than shake it out and hang it up.
A wool base layer set can be worn for a week without noticeable odour and they go into your regular laundry. The wool in washable base layers is very thin and can break easily. If your laundry detergent has enzyme based stain removers they will act on the wool and weaken the fibres since wool is also protein.
Heavier weight wools are a bit more difficult. On the rare occasions when they actually need to be washed use cold water and set your washer to a “gentle” or “hand wash” cycle. Wrap them in a towel to gently squeeze as much water out as you can and lay them flat on another towel to dry.
Hot water, vigorous agitation, and wringing or twisting are techniques for making felt. Unless want to make felt or you have something labelled “superwash” don’t do that. “Superwash” wool doesn’t shrink in the regular wash even in hot water because the wool fibres have been treated with plastic to prevent it.
The biggest challenge with wool is preventing moth damage. Putting sachets of lavender, cloves, cedar, or other strong aromatics in your drawers will deter them. These need to be replaced or refreshed seasonally. Putting your woolies into the freezer for a couple of days when you first get them and in the spring before you put them away in a for the summer will keep them safe.
Last of all I just want to offer a gentle reminder that if climate anxiety, political uncertainty, or the insanity of the wide world is causing you distress, a big cosy sweater is way better than an emotional support chicken any day.
Stay warm!
1 Despite the many comparable problems with the manufacture of natural fibres their one huge advantage is that they biodegrade easily at the end of their useful life.
2 A quick search brought up a number of articles. https://sashuthelabel.com/blogs/clothing-and-your-health/how-synthetic-fabrics-affect-your-hormones-and-what-to-wear-instead
All Hail Wool!
Date: 2026-10-29 04:55 pm (UTC)Wool is, by far, my favourite fabric for all the reasons you have cited.
A few random thoughts crossed my mind as I read it:
1) I have in my dresser drawers a pair of pure wool socks that my mother knit for me in 1997. I wear these socks every year from November through to April. Still going strong!
2) I wear workmen's socks throughout the year because their fabric blend includes wool. I have sweaty feet and hate synthetic socks, and cotton socks become a soggy mess more often than not. Socks that have wool breathe wonderfully and never feel soggy.
3) Many years ago I read a book about the re-creation (re-enactment?) of the voyage of St. Brendan across the Atlantic Ocean. The team tried to be as authentic as possible in terms of not only the boat but all supplies. They picked up a rugged sailor from the Faroe Islands who wore thick homespun wool from head to toe: perfect attire for the cold, wet voyage across the North Atlantic!
Keep it up with the fascinating blogs!
Ron M
Re: All Hail Wool!
Date: 2026-10-29 05:22 pm (UTC)Love the stories.
Wool sock for the win!
And all wool outdoor gear too.
When I was younger one of my dear friends was an older woman who had been an outdoor guide and all weather camper long before modern high tech gear was available. She never used or needed gortex or any of the other "must haves" for skiing and outdoor sports. She was always perfectly attired and perfectly comfortable no matter what the weather or event.
A real inspiration.
E.
no subject
Date: 2026-10-29 10:51 pm (UTC)That guppy friend bag... looks really neat! Would easily double as a delicates bag, looks like.
no subject
Date: 2026-10-30 12:46 am (UTC)I'm only now getting a few lightweight summer wools in my wardrobe. I have one pair of light wool pants and they are surprisingly comfortable but then I'm in the humid Pacific Northwest. Cold temperate. Our summers rarely get really hot.
gripes
Date: 2026-11-05 10:40 am (UTC)Re plant based synthetics: marketing has let people think that rayon (currently sold hereabouts as bamboo), being from a "natural" source, is good for the environment and in fact "natural". Nobody much knows about the horrors of its manufacture and the term "synthetic" is never seen in its promotion. So their good intentions are being played most cynically. Oh, you are not surprised?
Pure linen, cotton or other natural fibre is very hard to find. The majority of clothes/home furnishings/bedding materials available in mainstream stores consist of blended fibres - I don't think market pressure from the consumer end, rather the low cost of synthetics, is behind this situation. Particularly the abominable case where socks are labelled "cotton rich" or "wool rich" - meaning they have some of the stated material in them. Can't get pure wool socks for love nor money here unless someone hand knits them.
Once a man who had used to work for a NZ company making woollens by the name of "red devils" told me, "The products lasted too long. The company didn't sell enough of them." I have never been able to find aught about this company on the web but note that current woollen garments on the market by NZ manufacturers like Icebreaker and Macpac are not at all sturdy.
Re: gripes
Date: 2026-11-05 07:10 pm (UTC)The sleight of hand around bamboo is really galling. It's just as much of an ecological nightmare as rayon has always been but bamboo is an annual crop so that makes the greenwashing easy.
The ubiquity of mixed fibres and poor quality of the goods available is equally frustrating.
There was a time when you could go into a charity shop with a reasonable chance of finding something good. No more. It's all synthetic or mostly synthetic with a tiny bit of some natural fibre thrown.
There is a "fibre shed" movement that's promoting local production, mostly wool, and mostly for craft workers who want something special. There are also a few people growing and processing flax linen. But it's a novelty not an alternative.
Maybe something will come of it. At least there is some hope of keeping the essential skills alive.