Frequently Asked Questions
- What's the difference between underwear and baselayer? Or are they the same thing?
No they are not the same thing - there's a big difference. "Underwear" is exactly that. It's designed specifically to be worn under clothes, never to be seen and therefore it doesn't always look very good and has limited use. We used to stock an underwear range called "Supreme". OK for wearing under shirts and other gear, but you wouldn't want to wear it solo. Baselayer, on the other hand, is deliberately designed for layering and to be multipurpose. We have taken great care with our Taranaki 190 range to ensure that it looks good worn solo.
- There's a company in New Zealand that claims Icebreaker stuff is "sourced" in New Zealand. Doesn't this mean "made in New Zealand". Are they telling the truth?
"Sourced" is one of those weasel words. It can mean anything from "made in New Zealand" to "the ancestors of the sheep from which the wool comes from were from New Zealand". Icebreaker clothing is made in China. Their fabric is made in China. Where the wool comes from may indeed be directly from New Zealand, or as some suspect, from sheep exported from New Zealand. We have no way of knowing if the latter is true or not. What you can be sure of is that the carbon footprint of clothing made in China, with all China's environemental pollution, exported to New Zealand, and then exported to the UK is going to be far higher than that making a single journey from New Zealand, with it's stringent environmental laws, to the UK - ours.
- Won't these new natural fibres, like bamboo, hemp and cellulose-based fabrics do the job just as well?
In a word - No. Whilst these fibres may be good in hot weather, none of them are a capable of managing moisture in the way Merino does. Nor will they regulate your body temperature, keeping you warm when it's cold, cool when it's hot. Neither will they keep you warm once they get wet. Also, the nature of these fabrics is not "elastic", so a close-fitting base-layer in these fabrics will not move with your body, restricting movement.
Bamboo clothing – relatively new to the market, can be seen advertised as "thermal". It isn't. It has far higher absorbency even than cotton, the down side of which is that it takes far longer to dry. Bad news if you get wet and it's cold. There's an old saying among people who go out in the mountains: "cotton kills". Bamboo won't do you any favours either.
- Why don't you use organic merino wool?
So little in the way of chemicals are used to treat New Zealand merino sheep, that the extra cost simply doesn't warrant it. It's one of the reasons we prefer New Zealand Merino. Australian merino, and that includes Tasmanian merino, to be legally described as "organic", cannot be treated with chemicals to treat for insect infestation and flystrike. This means that almost invariably the sheep have to be "mulesed". It is entirely up to the customer to decide for themselves whether they prefer their wool to be organic and therefore from Australian and Tasmanian sheep who have been mulesed, or whether they prefer their wool from New Zealand merino sheep who have been treated with the minimum allowed chemical repellant. In New Zealand, pesticide use is very tightly controlled and only the safest (according to international standards) can be used. For more information click here
- Should I allow for any shrinkage when buying Chocolate Fish base layers eg. Taranaki? I can't find any reference to shrinkage on your web site but my understanding is that wool tends to shrink when washed, at least for the first time or two. But does it? And if so, how much? I made the mistake of buying a cheap merino top but after the first wash it shrunk so much it was useless - just an expensive cleaning rag!
In our experience, as long as our merino is washed at 30deg on a wool cycle, using something like NikWax Woolwash (our favourite) or Ecover for Delicates - definitely not soap flakes, powder or those eco-ball thingies and definitely no fabric conditioner, and then dried away from direct heat - on a washing line or hanger for preference, it doesn't seem to shrink at all. It shouldn't as the fabric is pre-shrunk before being made into garments. We don't tumble dry as a drier can be too hot and anyway it wears your clothes out faster :'( There is some Merino gear out there that shrinks like mad - probably because it's cheap stuff that hasn't been spun well and then not pre-shrunk. Those are the processes that determine whether the fabric is machine washable or not.
- My polyprop outdoor gear smells terrible after only a short time, even after it's been washed. Won't merino be even worse?
No, just the opposite. The smell you get with synthetics is the result of the build up of bacteria and fungus on the fabric that feeds on your sweat. The only way the manufacturers can stop manmade fibres from developing unpleasant odour is to add yet more chemicals to them. Because Merino absorbs this moisture before releasing it, the sweat isn't lying on the surface growing mould and bacteria. Merino will start to smell eventually, but test show that this can take days rather than the hours it takes for synthetics to start smelling unpleasant. These smells also wash out of Merino where they can stay with synthetics.
- Will my Merino clothes keep their shape?
Yes. Merino, unlike some other natural fibres, such as cashmere, is naturally elastic. It is the nature of Merino fibre to "bounce back". It doesn't need any artificial additives such as lycra to help it keep its shape. Some manufacturers are adding synthetics to merino, but one has to ask why?
- Aren't Merino clothes difficult to take care of?
No. On the contrary, they're extremely easy to care for. Take a look at our Merino care page .
- Why don't you have a professionally designed and managed website like Rapha or some other on-line retailers?
We will if you, the customer, wants to pay more for our gear! The sad fact is that whatever we spend in overheads has to be added into the cost of our gear. Our customers are sensible folk who realise this and don't need their egos massaging by the appearance of a website.
Websites designed round programs like Dreamweaver cost thousands of pounds, and need professional maintenance. We couldn't do it ourselves so we would lose control of our company. More than one company has gone out of business by going down this route when the person who designed and managed their website disappeared, leaving the company high and dry. Our website may be simple, but it means that our customers aren't paying over the odds for their gear.
- Why don't you offer a paper catalogue?
Because we are an internet company. We think paper catalogues are a waste of resources and not environmentally friendly, and also to produce one costs a lot of money, the cost of which would have to be added to the cost of our clothing. As above, anything we spend in overheads has to be factored in to our pricing, so you, the customer would be paying for it. We'd rather keep our prices down.
- Why don't you make your gear in the UK?
Simple - there isn't a single company left in the UK that can produce our sort of pure Superfine merino wool clothing to the standard we require and our customers expect.
- Wouldn't getting your gear made in the UK reduce the environmental impact?
How could it? The environmental impact of bringing in the fabric, or even the yarn or unspun fleece, is exactly the same as bringing in the finished garments. To pretend otherwise is absolulute nonsense. As a company we simply try to keep our carbon footprint to a minimum and offset what we can.
- Why can't the wool be produced here in the UK?
It's too wet so they don't thrive here. Merino sheep do not like wet feet. They also need dry pasture. UK pasture, even on the Scottish Highlands, English Lake District, and Welsh Mountains, the grass is too soft and lush, and the fleece produced would be too coarse be used for next-to-skin clothing. No doubt it would be possible by careful selective breeding to develop a Merino strain that would do well here, but the EU gives no support to farmers for wool growing.
- Do you belong to any carbon-reduction program?
Yes. We found one that offers REAL benefit in terms of reduction of carbon footprint. Instead of a commercial company run from expensive and carbon-heavy offices based in London, we contribute to Bradford Council's Environmental Action Trust who plant trees AND look after them until they're properly established, here in the UK.
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