Cashmere Vs. Sheep Cashmere: A Single Word Difference, A Huge Difference
What Is Cashmere?
The material is wool obtained from the soft undercoat of goats. Some of the breeds that exhibit superior performance include the Inner Mongolian goats and the Kashmir goats. The goats shed the hair in spring. The herders take it by combing the goats. A single full grown goat gives between 150 and 200 grams per year. After cleaning, only approximately 50 grams remain that can be used. The hair required to make a single cashmere sweater needs four or five goats.
Cashmere fibers are super fine, usually between 14–19 micrometers wide-that's about three times thinner than your hair! They're naturally wavy, which makes these little air pockets that keep you really warm without being heavy. High-quality cashmere products have a silky-smooth feel and are often referred to as "soft gold."
What Is Sheep Wool?
Okay, here's a more human way to say that:
Sheep wool usually just means wool from sheep. Real sheep cashmere is that soft, fine stuff from under the coats of some sheep, like Merinos, but it's not common.
What you often see labeled sheep cashmere is really just fine wool, about 19–25 microns thick. It's not as soft as real cashmere and feels a bit rougher. Sheep make way more of this kind of wool than cashmere; one sheep can give you kilos of it each year.
Key Differences Comparison
Warmth:
According to wool standards, cashmere is thought to be up to eight times more heat-retaining than wool, maintaining only one-third of the weight of wool. The greater warmth of cashmere is caused by the finer and more crimped nature of the fibers that form more air spaces in the fabric to enhance the thermal insulation property of the fabric material.
Skin-friendliness:
The skin-friendliness of cashmere is attributed to its refined nature, silky touch, and low skin irritation characteristic, which renders it suitable to be worn as bare skin material.
Lightness:
The minimum weight of the fabric is an advantage that renders cashmere garments easy to wear without causing discomfort to the users.
A woolly jumper of similar thickness will have a mass of above 500 grams, whereas a cashmere jumper will have a mass of around 200 to 300 grams. This makes the clothes made of cashmere exceptionally light in weight.
Durability and Care:
Wool products are also more durable and structurally stable. Cashmere requires more gentler care with handwashing and drying flat to prevent stretching and deformation.
How to Distinguish Between Real and Fake Cashmere
Touch Test
Real cashmere has a very pleasant tactile quality and is nice to touch and wear. It is soft and smooth, and has some stretch to it. When you rub it, it should bounce back into shape quickly.
Burning Test
When burned, cashmere emits a smell similar to that of burned hair. It will also leave behind some black, crumbly ash. Fake cashmere will smell like burnt plastic, and will turn into a melted blob of plastic.
Label info
It also never hurts to read the label and see what the item is made of. If it is labeled 100% Cashmere, this means that the item is authentic cashmere. If the product is a cashmere blend, the label should tell you which other materials have been added.
