Wool Socks

Wool is beside cotton the traditional fabric to produce socks. The insulating qualities make it so popular, especially for the Winter. Socks manufacturers frequently add a small amount of artificial fibre to treat the toe and heel areas for higher durability.

Extra fine and soft socks are made from  Merino Wool, which comes from a specific breed of sheep. This grows fine wool with superior qualities and is therefore rarer and slightly more expensive.

Wool - not only for Socks

Wool is the fiber derived from the hair of domesticated animals, usually sheep. Most of the fiber from domestic sheep has two qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it is scaled in such a way that it helps the animal move out burrs and seeds that might embed themselves into its skin; and it is crimped, in some fleeces more than 20 bends per inch.

Both the scaling and the crimp make it possible to spin and felt the fleece. They help the individual fibers "grab" each other so that they stay together. They also make the product retain heat, as they trap heat in their bends. Insulation also works the other way and helps to keep heat out.

The amount of crimp corresponds with the fineness of the wool fibers. A fine wool like merino may have up to a hundred crimps per inch, where the coarser wools like karakul may have as few as one to two crimps per inch.

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