Wool: Pros and Cons

Earlier this week I posted reasons that I've recently gone wooly. In that post I revealed to you several important things about both myself and wool. One is that I like wool clothing. Two is that I have sweaty feet-- and thus I wear wool socks so they don't feel so sweaty. Three is that I have some shirts that smell-- and thus I now wear wool shirts to prevent the odor.

Now, you may be wondering is does Betty Mountain Girl have any other useful information to disburse or is she basically describing the reason why she didn't make it into a college sorority? In fact I do! There are even more reasons why to wear wool than those I described. I've compiled a list of pros and cons to help you decide if you should join the wooly clan.

Misty Wearing Some Wool- okay they're just my Smartwool Socks

Pros

It keeps you warm.

It's old school warmth. For years explorers, skiers, and wood stackers have stayed warm by wearing wool.

It's water resistant

Basically, the outer layer of wool has it's own waxy coating providing some water resistance.

It's odor-resistant

Umm... I think I've gone into that one enough.

It's flame resistant

That's a new one for me. Never tried it, just sort of taking Ibex's word for it.

It's sustainable

Wool regrows. That's a wonderful thing. Plus, have you ever heard the process to make synthetic materials? It involves a lot of machinery using a lot of energy.

It's biodegradable

Whereas that synthetic material will be around for way, way too long.

-------------------------- --------------------

Cons

Be careful washing

Even though there has been drastic improvements to prevent shrinking, I still sometimes get some shrinkage. Plus, always pulling it out of the laundry can be a pain.

They don't wick quite as well as synthetics

I don't know the exacts on this one, but I do know that wool does wick- just not as well as synthetics.