What happens if wool gets rained on

If it's a wool sweater, you probably already know that you have to be very careful with it when you clean it. Wool will shrink when it gets wet!

So where does wool come from? It comes from sheep , of course. So do sheep shrink when they get wet? If you're a shepherd with a flock in the rain , will you be left with a group of much smaller sheep?

The shrinking of wool clothing that so many people are familiar with is actually the result of a process called felting. To understand felting , you need to know a bit more about wool as a fiber. The fiber we know as wool that comes from sheep is made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. As wool grows on a sheep , it gets keratinized , which simply means it hardens. Other examples of keratinized proteins are fingernails and hair. Wool fibers on a sheep have flat, overlapping scales that always point away from the sheep 's body.

When these wool fibers get processed and made into clothing, however, the fibers are stretched out. The orientation of the scales gets mixed up and they can be pointing in any random direction. When wool clothing is washed and moved about like is normal in a washing machine, the wool fibers rub against each other. The scale edges on the fibers often touch and interlock , holding the fibers in position and not allowing the fibers to slide back to their original, stretched-out positions.

When hundreds and hundreds of wool fibers do this, it's called felting and results in a smaller garment that appears to have shrunk.

As any shepherd will tell you, sheep do just fine in the rain and don't shrink like a wool sweater. This is because their wool fibers have scales that are all pointing in the same direction. When they get wet, they can slide back into position without getting caught or locked into place.

No felting takes place on sheep in the rain , so they don't shrink! Sheep also produce a natural oily substance called lanolin. Lanolin covers the wool fibers of their coats, acting as a natural lubricant that prevents fibers from locking together. Lanolin also repels water, which makes sheep somewhat waterproof when they're out in the rain.

This is good for sheep , since it prevents their wool from getting soaked and waterlogged, which would be very uncomfortable since they have so much wool! Wouldn't it be funny if sheep shrunk when it rained? Shepherds would have a much harder job, wouldn't they? Keep thinking about these things as you check out one or more of the following activities with a friend or family member:. Thanks for a great answer to this silly little question I first posted to the internet way back in !

Very fun. We are glad this Wonder of the Day got you thinking. We encourage you to see if you can find the answers to your questions and then report back what you found out! So happy to hear from you! Thank you for asking, Inquiring Mind! We just added links to our sources for this Wonder.

You can find them above on the right in a box titled, "Wonder Sources. Thanks for exploring this Wonder! We appreciate you reading the comments, too. Hey there, Kaiateipo! Thanks for sharing your comment today-- we learned all about the wool from sheep! Who knew that the wool sweaters we own might shrink when they get wet, but sheep have special oils that act like a raincoat for their wool? It's fascinating! We are glad you visited us today- thanks for stopping by!

Hey there, Nira, thanks so much for sharing your comment with us today! It sounds like you have a super cool connection to our sheep Wonder today! We Wonder what day of the year you buy sheep in Bosnia? Wool can get take a soaking without any disastrous consequences. Wool can actually absorb roughly half its weight in water without feeling wet or suffering detrimental damage. Just soak your coat into lukewarm water, add a wool cleaning detergent, and leave it for 10 minutes.

Afterward, rinse the coat thoroughly and use more water to rinse the detergent water. Merino wool is one of the rare fabrics that can generate heat while it dries. Inside the fibers, the hydrogen bonds in water break down.

Waterproof means that the fabric doesn't soak up water at all. It could be completely submerged and you would still stay dry. The jacket above is not a wool jacket, but it's completely waterproof and is made out of a synthetic fabric that looks somewhat wool-like. Basically, if you get caught in a sudden rain shower, it's lightly drizzling, or you just have to run out for a couple minutes, you'll be fine in wool. When wool does absorb liquids, it can take in up to 35 percent of its weight.

Wool insulates against wind, cold and heat. The absorbent qualities of wool do not diminish its insulating power, even when the coat is wet. A soaked wool coat can take a long time to dry and may have a strong, unpleasant smell. However, some wool blends minimize the wet-wool smell. To properly dry a wool coat and keep the damp smell from lingering, hang it in a ventilated, warm and dry location until it dries.

You can use a clothes dryer set on air-dry or the lowest heat setting, but monitor the coat closely to keep it from shrinking.