A sweater made from soft baby alpaca rivals cashmere fibre when it comes to softness and outdoes it when it comes to strength.
Baby alpaca vs cashmere.
While an alpaca fibre has an overall larger diameter than a cashmere fibre after animals are shorn experts hand sort the wool by staple length and diameter ranging from prime downy soft baby alpaca those finest of under hairs not actually shorn from baby alpacas to the more robust guard hairs found on animals legs and undersides.
Alpaca is much more resistant making this material excellent for travel wear.
Cashmere the manufacturing practices are very strict and carefully maintained to ensure the final product lives up to the hype of being ultra soft light warm and good value for the considerable money charged for it.
We all know that cashmere is a great product but how does it compare to something like alpaca wool.
The family run italian brand has been creating high quality cashmere garments for more than 90 years.
A sweater made of classified super baby alpaca can rival its cashmere counterpart when it comes to softness and outdo it when it comes to strength.
Cashmere has a long standing reputation for quality and softness.
It is quite scarce and difficult to find which makes it quite expensive and valuable.
A sweater costing 150 to 200 pretty standard.
Second only to silk for strength alpaca is comparable to the luxurious softness of cashmere yet more durable and far more hard wearing than both.
12 13 a cashmere turtleneck sweater can cost around 2 000.
It is just as warm and soft as cashmere but even more durable.
Lastly there are many perks of alpaca over cashmere but the biggest is probably price.
Cashmere easily stretches and often clings to you.
A baby cashmere coat will set.
Alpacas live in the wild mainly in the andes of peru while cashmere goats are bred on a massive scale in countries such as mongolia and china.
Both fibers are water resistant as compared with other natural fibers.
Cashmere fibres are four cm long whereas alpaca measure between eight to twelve cm.
As can be inferred from the name the wool is originally from the kashmir region.
Alpaca fibers are hollow with an insulating core that makes them both warm and breathable.
Unlike cashmere alpaca is sometimes considered an outsider.
Similar to cashmere alpaca is a natural fiber with a silky luxurious feel.
Cashmere is much more prone to pilling due to its short length and delicate structure.
This results in alpaca fibre made garments being less likely to pill and more durable.