Are you worried that your new wool bedding will come with its own odor?
For our last installment of our Wool Myths series, we will address another common misconception about wool — the misconception that wool smells like sheep.
If you’ve ever been around sheep, then you know they have a distinctive smell. It isn’t usually offensive to most people, but they certainly have an odor. What your olfactory (that’s science-speak for “smelling”) system is detecting when you’re around sheep is the lanolin on the wool as well as the dirt. When sheep are sheared, the lanolin and organic vegetable matter (dirt, grass, etc.) stay on the wool unless carefully washed off.
As written about in our Understanding Wool Processing blog, here at Shepherd’s Dream we scour most of the lanolin out of the wool without using chemicals before using it in our products. Lanolin does have a kind of “sheepy” odor to it, so removing it removes almost all of the scent with it.
Our wool is then processed in a variety of ways depending on the type of product it will be used in — again, with no added chemicals. Once our products are finished being produced, they’re placed in biodegradable packaging and ready for safe travel to your home.
Sometimes, upon opening a newly purchased product, a faint odor can be still detected by those of us with very sensitive noses, even though the lanolin has been removed and the wool has been thoroughly cleaned. But with a little air and sunshine, it will quickly subside and you’ll never detect that odor again.
In other words, don’t be worried about your wool bedding having a weird sheepy smell. We promise you’ll enjoy having the “wool pulled over your eyes” — or in this case, over your nose — when you purchase our products!
This concludes our series on Common Misunderstandings About Wool. Whether you’re already a lover of wool or new to this amazing fiber, we hope you enjoyed reading about organic wool bedding and learned a few things too.
As always, we’re here to help you sleep your natural best! In case you missed any of the previous Wool Myths Series, click on any of the links below:
