When we talk about wool, we hear quite many different properties
like anti-static, anti-wrinkle, anti-odor,
thermo regulating, insulating, et cetera.
To understand how a material can have all those properties,
we have to take a deep dive and look at the fiber.
These are the surface structures on different fibers,
some natural fibers,
and also polyester, synthetic polyester fiber.
If you look at the polyester fiber,
it's very straight and even with a flat surface.
If we look on the natural fibers,
they are more irregular in the surface and also the texture of it.
The wool fiber has this flaky structure,
and it's also built up with a protein called keratin.
It's naturally hydrophobic so it doesn't like water.
It handles water, but in a different way
compared to synthetic material like polyester.
We will look at a few different materials and see how it handles water.
We have a polyester material,
we have a thin wool base layer,
and we have a bit thicker woven wool shirt.
Starting with the polyester, I add some water to it.
What happens on the polyester since it's hydrophilic,
the water spreads out really fast,
and that's because of the capillary effect.
Capillary effect works because we have these flat surface fibers
with a lot of tiny hollow spaces in between
which is perfect for spreading out the water
over a bigger area.
Of course, from that,
it can then evaporate and dry really quick.
That's a good property with polyester.
It dries up extremely fast.
If we compare with the wool-based layer,
we can see that the drops stays on top
a bit longer and then start spread out.
That's because of the hydrophilic property of the wool fiber
together with a flaky structure.
Because of the flaky structure,
the water is not transported out along the fibers
as quick as on the polyester garment,
which also has a few benefits in certain conditions.
Then on this last one, which is more tightly woven wool,
If I pour some water on it,
we will see that the drops will stay even longer and more
and that's because of the hydrophobic properties of the wool,
and imagine we were wearing this and walking around,
the water would fall off.
Of course, it's not a waterproof garment, but you will stay dry longer,
if you have a light summer rain or spring rain.
Polyester is hydrophilic naturally,
but we can enhance the polyester because we use it in shell garments,
like this Keb Eco-Shell Jacket.
It's also made out of polyester, and this is a shell garment,
and obviously, we don't want it to soak up water.
We can treat the polyester fabric with DWR impregnation
to make it hydrophobic.
Similar to the inherited property of wool,
and the drops falls off.
If we move even further inside the fiber,
wool can store up to 30% of its own weight in water,
and it's stored inside the fiber as liquid.
On the surface of the fiber, it feels dry.
The wool fiber can store water as liquid,
but water as liquid can't enter through the cell membrane.
Moisture can move through the cell membrane,
and then make a phase transition from gas to liquid,
and be stored inside the wool fiber.
When we have a phase transition like that,
it releases energy.
Then if we add energy with you as a heat source,
the liquid will then vaporize again,
and move out through the cell membrane
and disappear with the wind.
Maybe the simplest and best way to explain the phase transition of water
is, of course, boiling water.
We put the pot on a stove and we add energy,
and after a while, it would start boil.
It moves from being liquid to being a vapor or gas.
Same with putting water into the freezer.
We actually take away energy from it,
and after a while, it will freeze up and be ice.
This is a really good property when using a wool garment,
for example, as a mid-layer in under a shell garment.
Problem with the shell garment can be that the shell itself, the membrane itself,
has a limit to how much it can breathe.
When you start to feel really warm and not so comfortable,
typically it's because the humidity level inside the garment is too high,
but if we put a layer of wool or two layers of wool underneath,
the wool will store the liquid or the moist
until it can be released
and be transported out through the shell layer.
Typically, it works as you can say thermo-regulating,
but also maybe as a buffer,
having a lot of water inside
and releasing water out through the shell garment.
Because some humidity is always trapped inside the wool fiber,
it's a good conductor for electricity.
Wool garments are typically anti-static naturally.
Wool is also fire resistant.
It's partly because of the water
that it can trap some water inside the fiber,
but mainly because of the material itself, the protein that builds up the fiber.
This protein ignites at around 600 degrees
and it's more chores, it doesn't create flames or anything.
We can compare that to cotton that ignites around 250 degrees.
Another useful property is anti-wrinkle properties,
maybe not so important in the outdoor industry,
but I think that's the reason why
wool is a very popular material for making suits.
The reason why it doesn't create wrinkle
is because of the molecule chains that builds up the wool fiber.
Those molecule chains are a bit spiral-shaped,
that makes them become elastic,
and that's the reason why
the finished material is almost wrinkle-free.
We also hear the word anti-odor when we talk about wool,
and the reason why your garment
can start to smell after a while is bacterias.
Bacterias like, or they are growing very fast
on an even surface together with water and oxygen.
If you look at the wool fiber and the wool fabric,
we know it's built up with this flaky uneven structured fibers.
We don't have the flat surface
and we know that the wool stores water inside away from the oxygen,
we create an environment that is not suitable for bacterias to grow.
A wool garment can smell.
For example, if you sit close to a fireplace,
you have the fumes, it smells fireplace,
but that smell is really easy to get rid of,
if you just hang it out maybe on your balcony
or if you don't have a balcony, you can hang it inside your shower
to have this moist air going through the fibers and clean them.
You can easily get rid of other smells from the wool garment.
Zooming out a little bit from the fiber and looking at wool as a raw material
that we can create a lot of different type of fabrics from,
maybe during the 19th century,
we have focus a lot on the synthetic materials
because of price and really possible to scale up
and make huge quantities of
and forgotten about the wool as a really good outdoor material.
Now it's time to reclaim the wool as the good material it is.
Thanks for watching.
If you have any questions around wool,
the Fjällräven wool or our wool products,
please put your question down below
and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
See you out in nature.