Not sure if you can wear wool? Merino? Mohair? Camel? Llama? Acrylic? Here is the itch test and some small tips to try and minimize the itch, or the "prickle factor."
The Itch Test
- if you're in the yarn store: pick the yarn you think you want, and walk around for 15 minutes drooling over all the other beautiful yarns you know you shouldn't buy. If, at the end of that 15 minutes, you don't feel any sensitivity, smile and buy the yarn :). If you're slightly less self-conscious than I am, put the yarn in the crook of your neck for a while.
- at home: you can try the 15 minutes-in-your-hands (or the crook of your neck) test as well. Also, try knitting a swatch and putting it against your skin, even rubbing it against your skin. No problems? Excellent! Knit away!
Beware...
... if you are looking at cashmere, llama, alpaca or camel, look for long protruding hair from the yarn. This can look beautifully textured, but especially if they have some firmness to them or are a slightly different color, they are likely "guard hairs" from the outer layers of these animal's fleeces - these will cause most people to itch. Avoid! (I like buying yarn from farmers' markets, but do be on your guard for those guard hairs here! I have seen them frequently. Commercial yarns generally have stricter standards.)
(If you've already finished the project and want to make it less itchy... take a look at my blog post on getting rid of the itch.)
The Technical Stuff
What causes itch? Each person's skin is different in the amount of nerve endings they have in their skin, how closely they are spaced, and how sensitive they are. While we can't SEE the difference in width between a wool fiber and a baby alpaca fiber, many people's skins can detect the difference.
Fiber "itch" is determined by micron size - a micron, a micrometer, is one one-millionth of a metre. (Divide one meter into a million sections, and you have a micron). Or, divide a millimeter into a thousand pieces. It's about 0.000039 inches. Smaller micron size = less itch.
Some of the common animal fibers and their micron sizes are:
- Angora (rabbit): 13-15 microns
- Cashmere: About 15 microns
- Alpaca: 15 microns and higher (baby alpaca is 20 - 22.9 microns; see my Knitting With Alpaca post for more divisions)
- Merino wool: About 17-24 microns
- Kid mohair (from young goats): 23-30 microns
- Mohair: 25-45 microns.
- Wool, not including merino: A huge variety here! You can get anywhere from 15-70 microns, generally store-bought commercial yarns are often around the 30 micron mark. Trust your hands and your neck and do an itch test if you're not sure. Lambswool will generally be on the finer (less itchy) side of things.
- Silk should not be itchy. If it is, there is something added to it that your skin is sensitive to, such as the dye or a chemical used in the processing.
- Plant fibers? Highly-commercialized plant fibers (cotton) are rarely itchy. Linen yarn can be very stiff when you buy it, but it softens up nicely with washing or vigorous blocking and shouldn't be itchy. Some hemp yarns can feel very scratchy, although the newer yarns are becoming more consumer- and wearer-friendly; trust your hand-test and word-of-mouth reports with hemp yarns and other more alternative plant fiber yarns.
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| Hope Shawl - linen |
Thank you for providing this information. I found it to be really helpful. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post! Very interesting! I sometimes find mohair against my neck a little itchy, but perfectly fine elsewhere - hmm.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of buying yarn at farmer's markets has peeked my interest :D are there any farmers markets that sell fibre goodness in the western cape you can recommend?