OLIVER CHARLES’ Post

Here are five interesting facts about how wool helps maintain body odor: Natural Odor Resistance: #Wool fibers have #natural antibacterial properties that help prevent the growth of odor-causing bacteria, keeping the #fabric #fresher for longer periods without needing frequent washing. Moisture Management: Wool can absorb up to 30% of its weight in moisture without feeling wet, which helps to keep the skin dry and less prone to sweat-induced odors. Breathability: Wool's ability to regulate temperature and allow air circulation reduces overheating and sweating, further minimizing body odor. Keratin Protein Structure: The unique structure of wool, rich in keratin proteins, absorbs odors and releases them when cleaned, helping to maintain a neutral scent. Eco-Friendly Freshness: Wool's natural #fibers are #biodegradable and renewable, offering a sustainable choice for odor-resistant clothing compared to synthetic alternatives. These qualities make wool an excellent choice for clothing that stays fresh and comfortable throughout the day. #woolexport #woolcompany #purewool #woolgarments #organicwool #together #mojopanda #madeinindia #palamvihar #exportwool #woolbusiness #bulkorder #woolcotton #purecotton #planet #biodegredable #woolfact #wooljourney #woolscience

30 million. That’s how many sheep we have here in the British Isles. Give or take a million. They produce around 72,000 tonnes of wool each year. A gem of a material that: ✅ Keeps you warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s warm. ✅ Is renewable. ✅ Biodegrades in months, not years, unlike synthetics. October is Wool Month. To celebrate, can you bring more wool into your business? Here are 4 great initiatives from local British producers that could help you make this happen: 👕 The Great British Wool Revival: a collaboration between Fashion Roundtable ORG LTD and The Wool Library, is an open-source mapping tool connecting farmers, designers, and makers. It makes traceable British wool more accessible in fashion supply chains – from farm to final product. 📦 Woolcool®: the only packaging company using pure wool insulated packaging available on a commercial scale. They use a majority British & Irish wool mix, with elements of European, Mediterranean and Turkish wool. B Corp. Multi-award-winning. If you ship items that need temperature regulation, they’re definitely worth exploring. 🪢 Sustainable Rope Ltd, founded by Kate Drury, are proud manufacturers of British wool rope, offering a fully local manufacturing process within 60 miles of their West Yorkshire workshop. If your business uses rope, any sort, thick or thin, they offer a sustainable option worth considering 🏢 Wools of Cumbria Carpets create 100% natural wool carpets and rugs from Herdwick, Rough Fell, and Swaledale Cumbrian sheep breeds. Hard-wearing and natural – a perfect option if you’re planning to re-fit your office any time soon. Do you know any other British wool companies we should all look up? #sustainablebusiness #BritishWool #backbritishfarming Photo credit: Mike63 on iStock ============================ On a mission to connect the best local producers with consumers who care a little more about what they buy, follow our NEAR-BY journey as we hunt for the finest growers and makers our islands have to offer. Contact me if you’re a large business seeking help to build relationships with nearby producers, or a small business in need of smart, low-cost marketing initiatives to grow your brand.

Great to get some more nationals coverage for Glencroft today. This time in The Independent following a quick turn around on some comments for a piece they were doing on the best autumn and winter woollens. If you are wondering why to choose wool (or even better, British Wool), then have a read. It has so many natural qualities, it's completely sustainable and biodegradable and is actually pretty easy to care for too. It is made up of hygroscopic fibres, which is a complicated way of saying that wool is super absorbent. As a result, it soaks up sweat, removing it from the skin’s surface helping to keep your skin dry, which discourages bacterial growth and the smells associated with it. And if you buy from a company like Glencroft, which makes its own wool from the fleece of sheep on the hills around them, then you can ensure the traceability of your product from farm to yarn too. https://lnkd.in/ewGw6mK6

Revealing 🔎 the hidden stain 🩸on your white woolen shirt. Currently, 80% of fine merino wool used in clothing, comes from Australia 🇦🇺 — the biggest wool exporter for the fashion market globally. Unfortunately, most lambs are subjected to live lamb cutting (mulesing) in Australia — the only country where this is commonly practiced. Every year over 10 million lambs are alert and feel the cold sharp sheers ✂️ cut into their skin and flesh without necessary pain relief. Due to the fashion industry’s lack of transparency and traceability, brands make the ultimate decision about their wool sourcing and can use animal welfare certifications to exclude wool from sheep that were once live cut or exclude wool altogether. Only 20% of Australia’s wool was declared as free of live lamb cutting via the National Wool Declaration in 2023. 🐑✂️🩸 Since the vast majority of Australia’s wool comes from sheep 🐑 that underwent the traumatic event of live lamb cutting, your wool clothing item has an approximate 64% chance of coming from one of these sheep. We used the visual to highlight the brutality of this practice covering 64% of this shirt in the colour of blood 🩸 to symbolize the percentage of blood-stained wool clothing items across the globe. How can you avoid this? Either don't purchase wool items or if you do, check the label or the tag for the certification RWS, ZQ Merino, or NATIVA. Speak up 📢 by signing our petition to call on brands and governments to ban live lamb cutting (mulesing): https://brnw.ch/21wK1wO #EndLiveLambCutting #AnimalFriendlyFashion #EthicalFashion

FACTS you need to know about. The vast majority of lambs are subjected to live lamb blood cutting (mulesing) in Australia. Every year over 10 million young lambs are subjected to this abhorrent, excruciating painful live mutilation. Every single tiny lamb feel the cold sharp sheers ✂️ cut into their skin and flesh without the necessary pain relief and are left in unimaginable pain covered in blood. The Australian government allows this. The farmers do it as a matter of course. You could say it was a tradition like so many others that mutilate animals and humans. Due to the fashion industry’s huge lack of transparency and traceability, brands make the ultimate decision about their wool sourcing and can use animal welfare certifications to exclude wool from sheep that were once live cut or exclude wool altogether. Many brands are ignorant of this barbaric procedure or just don’t care. Profit before animal welfare is common. Only a minuscule 20% of Australia’s wool was declared as free of live lamb cutting via the National Wool Declaration in 2023. 🐑✂️🩸 80% of lambs were abused in this way. So, if you are buying wool products, just stop for a moment and consider your choices. #alllivesmatter #makeadifference #moralpurchases #ethicalbuying

Let's talk about wool colour....and value. Ryan Cosgrove spoke to Julia Jones recently about his most recent foray into data crunching for wool. If you're curious about wool - qualities, price, sector, progress - it's a must listen. Tune in here 🦻 https://lnkd.in/gTywKxEg Ryan's big question: "What's the wool characteristic that adds the most value to New Zealand's strong wool?" The answer: colour. 🧶 New Zealand's international wool reputation is based on quality. 🧶 Understanding what aspects of wool quality return the greatest value allows farmers to make informed decisions on-farm. 🧶 Those of us building relationships + market differentiators + value chains in global markets need to understand the supply profile of wool of different qualities to create greater value. 🧶 Our wool industry has lacked data that directs action on-farm, and differentiation in market. The Fusca market indicator (https://lnkd.in/g8TG9TnM) is a great start. Looking forward to its evolution and the inclusion of further detail. 🧶 Ryan found 48% of value today is attributed to colour. And yet we don't yet have industry data on the colour characteristics of wool produced in New Zealand. 🧶 New Zealand strong wool has low levels of vegetable matter (VM) = less processing. That's a marketable benefit for New Zealand wool. 🧶 There's a new commitment to pace and progress in New Zealand's wool sector. It's great to be working with Campaign for Wool NZ and others in the sector to bridge these knowledge gaps and take New Zealand wool to market with full recognition of its value. 🧶 Shout out to all the volunteers, like Ryan, that dedicate their time and energy because they believe in the value wool brings to the world, and can bring to farmers. Image: Camira's Blazer collection of interior fabrics uses New Zealand's lambswool to achieve these exceptional colours.

Do you know that only 1-2% of the entire spectrum of clothes comes from Wool? Wool is definitely an investment not an expense! Qualities of Wool… 1. Wool is a 100% natural fibre. 2. It is produced each year by sheep making it a truly renewable fibre source. 3. Wool is biodegradable. 4. It is both insulating and breathable which means it can retain heat in cool weather and keep you cool in warm weather. 5. It is inherently flame retardant (additional fireproof finishing may be required, depending on end use) 6. Wool is easy to care for, it is resistant to odours so requires less cleaning than many other fibres. 7. Each step of the process from sheep farming to yarn spinning and hand weaving utilises small batch production methods. 8. Buying wool products supports the work of many farmers and crofters, mill workers and home weavers. Invest in sustainable, ethical and durable luxury for your little one with us 🪡🧵🧶🇬🇧❤️ #wool #WoolFashion #WoolLove #WoolClothing #WoolApparel #Woolen #WoolBlend #WoolSweater #MerinoWool #WoollyWarmth #Wooly #NaturalFiber #SustainableWool #WarmAndCozy #WoollyWonderful Ria Morgan

In two weeks time I travel to Italy as part of a group of Australian wool growers and will be visiting Pitti Filati and several mills around Biella. It's my first trip to Biella region and I'm very excited by the prospect. I know more than some about wool processing, but not as much as I should. I've done the whole process myself by hand -from scouring, combing and spinning through to weaving cloth on an 8 shaft loom. To me, it is an essential part of growing this wool. You have to understand as much as possible, the needs of the processors. If you do it yourself your eyes are opened to the difficulties. Processing the finest Merino takes immense skill and technical knowledge. It's always a challenge. However, the ultimate challenge is what to do with the end result -the yarn or cloth you produce. Times are tough following on from the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine. Europeans are anxious and more reluctant to spend now than they have been for some time. Yet wool is a natural comforter in such times. When you want to curl up and hide from the world, nothing beats doing that under a wool blanket. If it's cold in winter and you can't afford to turn up the gas central heating, then putting on a wool jumper can make a real difference. At the other extreme, wool can also protect you from fire. It smoulders, it does not burst into flames nor does it melt onto your skin like some synthetics. And when you are simply hot and sweaty, wool helps by allowing your skin to breathe. Wool grows from grass, sunlight and water and re-grows every year on a sheep. Nothing is simpler in concept and yet more complex in form and function. For many centuries, people have worked with sheep and the landscape to develop and preserve this precious source of material. Biella has been a wool centre for more than 800 years, firstly working with local wools, specialising in the finest and then ultimately, when Australia came on stream, processing the finest of the fine Merino from start to finished yarn and cloth. Biella has grown organically with the wool industry, creating wealth for some in the good times and riding out the bad. The current challenge posed by the EU's #PEF legislation, may be one too many. It would be ironic if nations in Europe, many of which grew wealthy from wool, should decide to destroy the very source of that wealth. I am glad to be going to Biella now and not in 5 years time. Just in case.

Ferney Spinning mills (Mauritius), cannot wait to show you the latest innovative yarns of the AW25/26 collection at Pitti Imagine Filati 25 -27 June. But meanwhile, let's dive into the Wool universe, our Queen raw material. WOOL IS AN INTELLIGENT FIBER 100% NATURAL - Wool is 100% natural grown all year round by sheep consuming a simple blend of water, air, sunshine & grass. 100% BIODEGRADABLE - Wool fibre when disposed will naturally decompose in soil in a matter of years, slowly releasing valuable nutrients back into the earth. 100% RENEWABLE - Every year sheep produce a new fleece, making wool a completely renewable fibre. SOFT ON SKIN - Merino wool fibers are extremely fine, enabling them to bend far more than traditional coarser wool fibers. This make Merino wool feel soft and luxuriously gentle next to your skin. EASY TO CARE FOR - Most merino wool garments can be machine washed and tumble dried. WRINKLE RESISTANT - Merino wool fibre is like a coiled spring that returns to its natural shape after bent. This gives wool garments a natural resistance to wrinkles. INNOVATIVE - Merino wool can be treated in innovative ways to create unique textures and finishes. NATURALLY BREATHABLE - Wool is one of the most breathable fibers. It can absorb large quantities of moisture vapor then move it away to evaporate into the air. WARM AND COOL - In contrast to synthetics ,Wool is an active fiber that reacts to temperature changes. It helps you stay warm when the weather is cold , and cool when the weather is hot. ODOR RESISTANT - In contrast to synthetics ,Wool can absorb moisture vapor which means less sweat on your body. Wool even absorbs odor molecules from the sweat. NATURALLY ELASTIC - Natural elasticity helps Merino wool garments stretch with you, yet regain their original shape. STAIN RESISTANT - Merino wool fibers have a natural protective outer layer that helps to prevent stains from being absorbed. Merino wool tends not to generate static, it attracts less dust and lint. #cieltextile #PittiFilati #knitwear #knitinspiration #yarnsaddict #wool #mauritius #madagascar #sustainability #pittifilati

At a time when Superfine wool prices are too low to meet the needs of growers it's time for all of us to be proactive and make sure what we are offering has something extra. "Traditional" Superfine Merino, Italian Spinners Type, with its unique high crimping, high curvature, bright white, low micron characteristics is a rare wool. Less than 2% of Australian Merino is this. It is ideal for suitings but also is perfect for high end knitwear. Everyone in the wool processing chain knows this. Rarity, sheer beauty, softness and wonderful next to skin comfort make it the perfect choice for those in the know. But it's no longer enough. We must also tell the story of our wool. Tie the yarn, whenever possible, right back to the place and the sheep that grew it. Describe the lives of the animals, the family that cares for them and, crucially, the environment in which the wool is grown. When a brand can be linked directly with a grower through their yarn, its a win win for both sides. Some growers are offering this. Myself included. All brands or processors in the supply chain have to do, is ask and I'll provide images, videos, live interviews over Teams, and of course, visits. Potential customers are welcome here. We are close to all European countries. Nothing beats touching a warm lamb, burying your hands in a beautiful fleece, or walking through a field of traditional meadow grasses full of contented, grazing sheep. For Australian growers visits are harder but, with social media, Internet access etc, a personal link can still be made. We must step up and offer this direct access to all who are interested in our wool..Our own lives are a hidden asset we should offer routinely as part of the package. Only then can we say we have done all we can to showcase our amazing product.