NOT ALL MERINO IS SUPERFINE MERINO

Merino sheep produce Superfine Merino fleece - but not all of them.

Just because something is labelled as “Merino” don’t assume it will be smooth and fine enough to wear next to your skin. Merino fibres ranging from 18-21µ are considered the best for all-round performance, durability and comfort. However there is much on the market that definitely falls below this standard.

There are lots of strains of Merino sheep to be found around the world - Australia, the US, China, South America, Germany, etc., but it is the New Zealand merino strain that we believe produces the finest fleece.  The fleece of other strains of Merino simply does not meet the same standards, and it is only the finest of Merino fleece that can be made into garments that can be worn next to the skin with comfort.

Companies across the world are cashing in on Superfine Merino's hard earned reputation by labelling garments as “merino”when they are in fact a mix of merino and synthetic. They trademark names like “ActiveWool” “Powerwool”, and “Prowool” - great names - except these "wools" are 75% synthetic, 30% synthetic and 44% synthetic respectively.    Whilst this is not illegal, we think it's certainly misleading.

Some companies are labelling their Merino as "Ultra Fine" when it is actually 21 micron "Fine" Merino. This is illegal and one company has already been told by Trading Standards to relabel.   

What is also illegal is labelling something as "100% merino" when it isn't.  This is exactly what the New Zealand Wool Testing Authority found when they tested merino fabric made in China.  They discovered that it was in fact merino mixed with viscose.

The fact is that genuine superfine merino is rarer than cashmere.  There is no way that a cheap "merino" garment can be genuinely superfine merino.  There are several ways in which "merino" garments can be made more cheaply:

• Using parts of the fleece that are less good quality.  The best part of the fleece is the back and shoulders. Other parts are coarser, with less crimp and tensile strength.
• Not sorting the fleece to a high enough standard and leaving in the short fibres that cause pilling and the coarse fibres that cause itching.
• Using "slipe" wool - or "dead wool".  This is wool chemically recovered from carcasses and is of inferior quality.
• Using ordinary, non-merino wool, and chemically treating it to make it feel ostensibly like merino. It will not however perform like Superfine or Fine Merino.
• Chemically stretching wool fibre to reduce the micron count. This results in a weak fibre only suitable for felting.
• Treating ordinary wool or coarser merino wool fibre with acid to remove the outer scales.  Whilst this will reduces the micron count, it also removes the wool's anti-microbial and other properties as well as potentially putting dangerous chemicals in to the environment .

As only tests of  micron count under a microscope would reveal the truth about any of the above and this is too expensive a procedure to carry out on all the "merino" coming out of China, companies think they can get away with this.  We ourselves have had samples of merino fabric put under the electron microscope, as well as under a standard microscope and the results can be  seen here.  These are only a very small sample, and should not be regarded as indicative of overall quality.  However we have seen enough to send samples to New Zealand’s AgResearch for a full analysis.

What the experts in the wool industry in New Zealand  are saying is that they do not believe there is enough quality superfine and fine merino available to meet China's needs.

What can the customer do to ensure they are getting the real thing?  Being wary of buying "merino" at a low price is a good starter, because one thing is for sure, and that is genuine superfine merino is in short supply and is not "cheap".  If you buy a cheap product it will NOT be the genuine article.

How to check for quality when buying merino

One simple check is easily done with the naked eye - the check for  "cockle".  This is a particular problem with lightweight (under 180 gsm) single jersey fabrics.  Lines or ridges appear running laterally across the fabric. This is due to a distortion of the fabric as a result of the inclusion of thicker than normal  range of fibre diameters in the yarn blend, or the yarn setting, and/or loose knit density and overloaded wet finishing machines.  Cockling is  therefore a sign of poor manufacturing standards.  It is a signifier for pilling, and therefore itching when worn.

Another easy way to check quality is to hold a garment up to the light so that you can see a single layer of fabric.  if you see areas of fabric where it is thinner in some places than others, this is another sign of weakness.   

More evidence of poor quality is unevenness in the knit. The more even the knit, the smoother and more stable the fabric.  It is hard to achieve this with a single jersey fabric as this is prone to “spiraling”. Click here to see images of "cockling" in merino fabrics, and magnification images of merino fabrics.

Putting a price on quality

We think we sell the best merino in the world.  Our gear is made from genuine New Zealand superfine and fine merino wool fabric made in New Zealand by the world's leading company, Designer Textiles. Whilst the word “cheap” can mean inexpensive, it also means “poor quality”, “second-rate”, “substandard” and “inferior”.  We do not sell “cheap” merino.

What's in a name?

If the term “Superfine” or “Fine” isn't used to describe the quality of merino in a garment, you can bet that it's because the merino being used does not meet the criteria for Superfine or Fine quality. The result is that you could easily end up buying something that will itch, pill, and shrink in the wash.

We have seen some of this clothing. To put it bluntly it is poor.  It feels itchy, looks poorly cut and sewn, and is rarely machine-washable.  In fact we would say that if that cheap merino T-shirt or top you've seen isn't machine washable - avoid it like the plague.  It's a very good sign that the quality is poor.  Another sign is washing instructions telling you to wash it with a harsh fabric like denim to remove the "fluff".  You get what you pay for.  

Micron counts

Merino comes in several grades, from "ultrafine" to "strong" dependent on the micron count of the fibre. Merino wool is generally less than 24µ  in diameter. Strong (broad) wool is 24-25µ, Medium wool is 22-23µ, Fine 19-21.9µ, Superfine is 17-18.9µ, and Ultrafine is under 16.9µ.  Attempts are being made in Australia to produce fleeces even finer than this, but for the most part, these can only be produced by housing the sheep in sheds. Not exactly free-range!

Ultra fine wool is still the rarest grade commercially available and can fetch prices of over NZ$300 per fleece. When a single fleece only makes 5 garments, do you really think that Chinese-made baselayer you've bought claiming to be made from "ultrafine" merino is the genuine article?  We don't think so.  Ultrafine merino, apart from the cost, is only really suitable for babywear, fashion garments, or blending with other fibres such as silk and cashmere.

The micron count of a merino fabric is based on a bell curve average of micron counts found per square metre, and this is where we find most of the quality short-cuts being taken.  For a genuine superfine merino fabric, the micron counts should fall in a narrow range, with few if any of fibres coarser than fine being found, and few of the thin, weak fibres below 16µ.

Our tests of a number of merino fabrics found on the UK market show a very wide range indeed of micron counts ranging from as low as 14 to as high as 32!  It is difficult to see how this sort of range of micron count can produce a high quality yarn or in turn, a high quality fabric.  See here for our SEM results

However, even micron count alone is not enough to ensure an itch-free, non-pilling garment.  The wool fibre also has to have the right staple (length), tensile strength, and crimp (that's the curl).  Unless all four of these are present in the right amounts, the fibre will not be good enough.  Even then, if the wool fibre is not sorted so that the short ends are removed, the resulting yarn will be poor as will any fabric made from it. So do not be mislead by claims of low micron count.  Tests have shown that the average human cannot tell the difference between 14 micron and 19 micron fibres, and any fibre, merino or synthetic can itch if it is over 22 microns.

Ethical Manufacture

There is also the issue of where and how that “cheap” - or even expensive - merino T-shirt is made. Most merino clothing, including most of the leading brands, is made in China. This is a country where governmentally environmental issues are frequently ignored, as are human rights.  Wages are kept deliberately low. Some of us feel this is unethical on a variety of counts. Even worse in our opinion is to manufacture in China but still try to give the impression in advertising that it is made in clean, green New Zealand.  

Animal Welfare

Animal welfare issues also contribute to the price of your merino.  The practice of mulesing is not practiced on the New Zealand merino sheep that provide the wool for our clothing.  However mulesing is still carried out on Australian merino sheep, much of whose wool finds its way into Chinese-made merino clothing.

To learn more about the technical characteristics of merino click here.

UK Merino?

There aren’t any - at least not that produce superfine and fine merino wool.  The climate of the UK is too wet for this strain of merino.  There are a very small number of merino-cross breeds, but not enough to be commercially viable. Nor do we have a Wool Testing Authority that can oversee the standard and quality of merino wool.  We don’t have the facilities in the UK to sort and spin the wool to the required quality, or to make the yarn into the right type of fabric.  And sadly, we don’t even have companies here with the expertise to handle merino fabric to make it in to the type of clothing we want to a standard we would find acceptable.  

So UK-sourced merino is simply unattainable and we won’t pretend it is and tell customers that we are looking to source from the UK.  It simply isn’t realistically possible and it would be dishonest of us to pretend otherwise.