WOOL COMFORT AND HANDLE

Merino Wool: Naturally comfortable

Merino wool has long been the preferred fibre of retailers wishing to offer their customers a natural, sustainable product of superior style and handle.

A wool garment is naturally breathable; it keeps you warm in winter, and cools you down in summer. It naturally transports moisture away from your body keeping you dry during heat or exertion, and with natural and odour qualities wool garments stay fresh and ready to wear much longer. In recent years retailers, designers and consumers have discovered that the inherent attributes of wool make it the ideal fibre to be worn next-to-skin, not just because it looks good, but because it can outperform any other fibre.

These natural performance attributes mean that wearing wool next-to-skin can provide consumers with increased comfort no matter if they are dressing for fashion, for evey day comfort or even the extremes of active sports.

Next generation comfort and handle

Some retailers are unsure how to confidently specify and source wool products that will be comfortable, free of prickle and have that perfect hand feel that will make consumers want to wear the garment against the skin.

This makes sense, as until now order specification for next-to-skin comfort and handle has been based on little more than human estimation. There have been no objective measurement tools through which retailers and manufacturers could transparently specify a product that does not irritate, assures wearer comfort and has the perfect handle to consistently meet consumer expectations.

After five years of comprehensive consumer wearer trials, involving some 26,000 individual assessments and parallel development of a new measuring system, the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation has developed two instruments that accurately predict next-to-skin comfort and can calibrate a garment’s handle to the specific requirements of a brand and its target consumer.

Used in concert these instruments empower retailers like never before, removing the guess work from product specification and increasing transparency across the supply chain. The instruments are the Wool ComfortMeter, and the Wool HandleMeter.