A wool or wool-blend jumper that is looked after will outlast three that are not, and looking after it is mostly about doing less. Wool fibres have microscopic scales; when they are agitated in hot water those scales lock together and the fabric felts. Felting is permanent. No amount of stretching brings a shrunken jumper back.
Wash it less than you think
Wool is naturally odour-resistant and self-cleaning to a surprising degree. Unless something has been spilled on it, a jumper worn over a t-shirt needs washing perhaps every five or six wears. Between wears, hang it somewhere airy for a night – not in a wardrobe – and it will be fine.
Spot-clean small marks rather than washing the whole garment. Cold water, a drop of wool detergent, a clean cloth, dabbing not rubbing.
When you do wash it
By hand is safest and takes ten minutes:
- Fill a basin with cool water – genuinely cool, not warm. Add a capful of wool-specific detergent. Ordinary detergent contains enzymes that digest protein, and wool is protein.
- Submerge the jumper and press it gently a few times. Do not swirl, wring or rub. Leave it for ten minutes.
- Drain, refill with clean cool water, press again to rinse. Repeat once.
- Press the water out against the side of the basin. Never wring.
- Lay it flat on a dry towel, roll the towel up like a sleeping bag, press. Unroll.
By machine is acceptable if your machine has a genuine wool cycle – which means low agitation, not just low temperature. Use a mesh bag, cold water, and a spin no faster than 600 rpm. Anything above that stretches the garment while it is heavy with water.
Drying: flat, always
Dry knitwear flat, on a towel, away from radiators and direct sun. Reshape it while it is damp – square up the shoulders, pat the body back to its width, straighten the cuffs.
Never hang wet knitwear. Water is heavy, and a hanger concentrates all that weight on two points. That is how jumpers grow shoulder horns and sleeves that reach the knuckles. Even dry, knitwear belongs folded on a shelf, not on a hanger.
Tumble dryers are simply not an option. Heat plus tumbling is the exact recipe for felting.
Pilling is normal, and fixable
Pills are short fibres working their way loose and tangling – most common where a garment rubs against itself or a bag strap. Every knit does it; softer, higher-loft yarns do it more, which is why cashmere pills more than a hard-twisted merino. It is not a defect.
Deal with it with a cheap fabric shaver or a pumice-style sweater stone, laying the garment flat and working in one direction. Do not pull pills off by hand – that drags the fibre out of the knit and thins the fabric.
Storage between seasons
Wash before storing, always. Moths are drawn to the traces of skin and food on a worn garment, not to the wool itself. Fold, store in a breathable cotton bag rather than a sealed plastic box, and add cedar or lavender. Check on it once mid-summer.
What the label is telling you
- 100% wool, merino, lambswool: the routine above.
- Cashmere: same routine, more carefully. It pills more and felts faster.
- Wool blended with acrylic or nylon: more forgiving, still flat-dry it.
- 100% cotton knit: machine wash cold is fine, but still dry flat – cotton is heavy when wet and stretches just as readily.
The fibre content of every knit we carry is listed in the Specifications tab on its product page, alongside the brand and barcode.