Washing Raw Wool At Home Top Tips

Owning a wool mill means I do a lot of washing raw wool, also know as scouring. I wanted to share some of my top tips for washing wool which you can use at home. Hand processing wool can be time consuming and has a bit of a learning curve but once you get a routine it is a lovely way to process a fleece right from the beginner. Here are some of my top wool washing tips I have learned over the years.

1. Be sure the fleece is skirted thoroughly prior to washing. 
2. For ease of washing and rinsing, use a soap that is designed for scouring wool. I use Unicorn's Power Scour at the mill. The perks of this  detergent are it doesn't get super sudsy like a lot of soaps, it is easy on the environment and you can use a slightly lower water temperature.
3. Be sure you use hot water! Minimum 140 degrees farenheit is required to wash wool as that is the temperature that the lanolin melts at. A lot of the dirt on a fleece is attached to the lanolin, so when the lanolin melts off a lot of the dirt goes with it.
4. Don't wash too much at one time. Just like washing clothes, you don't want to pack things in too tight or the detergent and water can't do their job.
5. Open up the locks. This is one of  my biggest tips! For the same reasons as apply to tip #4, the more the cleaning agent and water can move around, the more clean the wool will get. This is especially true with finer wools and really dense down wool types. I open the locks up gently during each successive wash as well. Watch the video below to see this in action!

I hope these tips helps you in your wool processing journey. For more tips and tricks, head to my website to sign up for my newsletter where I share helpful wool tips and other Ewethful updates.
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