Some lanolin still left in the wool and little bumps created. I don't know why.
Today is the second try at washing fleece. I had a very very large fleece from the E'st a Laine Merino to do. It is white white and full of hay and lanolin. Yesterday the first trial was with Unicorn Sour, a wool wash specifically for this task. Today I used a Dawn dishwashing liquid.
The results yesterday were poor. The wool was not totally clean, even after four water changes. Washing does not remove vegetative matter, so that was the same, but there was a deposit of lanolin back onto the wool tips in places, which is not much, but still there. The scour removed the soft hand of the wool and created some bumps, like the beginning of felting. The first photo is of the fleece washed in Unicorn Scour.
Today's trial in Dawn liquid is much much better and much cheaper. The Unicorn Sour is not available here so I bought it online and paid shipping. A gallon, with shipping was over a hundred dollars. Dawn was 1.80 for a small bottle. I did not figure out how many bottles were in a gallon and what the price difference would be, but there are not 50 bottles in a gallon for sure. It would be around 8 bottles at $1.80 per bottle which is a whole lot cheaper than Unicorn Scour.
The results yesterday were poor. The wool was not totally clean, even after four water changes. Washing does not remove vegetative matter, so that was the same, but there was a deposit of lanolin back onto the wool tips in places, which is not much, but still there. The scour removed the soft hand of the wool and created some bumps, like the beginning of felting. The first photo is of the fleece washed in Unicorn Scour.
Today's trial in Dawn liquid is much much better and much cheaper. The Unicorn Sour is not available here so I bought it online and paid shipping. A gallon, with shipping was over a hundred dollars. Dawn was 1.80 for a small bottle. I did not figure out how many bottles were in a gallon and what the price difference would be, but there are not 50 bottles in a gallon for sure. It would be around 8 bottles at $1.80 per bottle which is a whole lot cheaper than Unicorn Scour.
There are two more wool washes coming to do a trial with. I have a feeling that the Dawn will win out though. It is detergent of some sort, so yes, chemical, but it washes the wool clean and does not redeposit the lanolin. Of course, this is the first time using either product on fleece and I will have more opportunities to try both and learn more. Once the wool is dry, I will do something called picking to remove the hay and a different process called combing, which removes hay too. Again, these will be test and I will see which works best for me.
I do know one thing. I washed the wool in a big plastic tote outside so I carried the hot water in a bucket. Each fill was 8 buckets of water, times 4 water changes. This took too much time. I will, in the future, try to get the washer/spin dryer hooked up in the basement and drained outside. I am not one to waste so much time on hand washing a small amount of fleece.
What a learning experience, this sheep keeping and wool processing, the old fashioned way.
I do know one thing. I washed the wool in a big plastic tote outside so I carried the hot water in a bucket. Each fill was 8 buckets of water, times 4 water changes. This took too much time. I will, in the future, try to get the washer/spin dryer hooked up in the basement and drained outside. I am not one to waste so much time on hand washing a small amount of fleece.
What a learning experience, this sheep keeping and wool processing, the old fashioned way.
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