Wool and allergies

We have a Siberian cat that is alleged to be less allergenic. We could tell
if we
didn't have 2 alley type short hair cats and to much haired golden
retrievers
running around. They acutally do make fabric softener and most other
laundry
products without fragrance here in the US. I just try to use as little of
that kind
of stuff as possible.
LOL on the gator allergies. I don't sneeze when I wear the vintage gator
shoes
that were my mama's.
Taria

"Jack Campin" wrote in message
...

"Polly Esther" wrote:
Now that we are a bit smarter (?), even the event 'allergic' gives us
pause
for thought or backing off and reconsidering. My sister is / was
violently
allergic to cats. Now she has a magnificent uppity quite pretentious QI
and
no allergy in sight. How much of this was in our heads?

Some cat breeds are less allergenic than others, so this might not be
all in her head.

Just lately, my eyes swell, my nose runs and my delicate sensibilities
are offended by scents in laundry detergent. Druther go pound my wash
in the creek and lay it to dry on the gators. A quandary, methinks.

Fabric conditioner is a common trigger for childhood asthma. Yucky
stuff. Why can't they make it unscented?

But before you try the alternative, get tested for gator allergy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU,
Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 http://www.campin.me.uk Twitter:
JackCampin

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 00:32:22 -0600, Polly Esther wrote:

Now that we are a bit smarter (?), even the event 'allergic' gives us
pause for thought or backing off and reconsidering. My sister is / was
violently allergic to cats. Now she has a magnificent uppity quite
pretentious QI and no allergy in sight. How much of this was in our
heads?

My vet tells me that it most often the dander not the hair that causes
allergic reactions.
So logically how an allergic person responds is going to vary animal to
animal.

Just lately, my eyes swell, my nose runs and my delicate
sensibilities
are offended by scents in laundry detergent. Druther go pound my wash
in the creek and lay it to dry on the gators. A quandary, methinks.
Polly

We have been using an inexpensive "free & clear" detergent for most of
our laundry. They changed the formula of the stuff we had been using and
the household started breaking out in rashes.
With a 5 year old (DD does her laundry at my house), and a 14 year old to
wash for, sometimes we need to use something a little tougher than the
average cheap liquid, so I turned to Dr Bronner. I had already been
using the liquid castile they sell on wool and silk, so we tried the
sal-suds on the cottons and synthetics. The stuff is the bomb on kid
dirt, works pretty well on greasy spots too. The brand is a little
pricey for every day washing, but for specialty laundry or as an addition
now and again it works.
For your average laundry the scent free cheap stuff with a little vinegar
or a little washing soda works just fine. And as an FYI, laundry soda =
soda ash = swimming pool chemical. I dye so I bought 50 pounds from a
pool supply company. I use it for dyeing, laundry, hardcore cleaning
tasks and cleaning the coffee pot. It's a bit of a godsend because the
fumes from some of the heavier duty cleaning chemicals send DH into an
asthma attack. Between vinegar and washing soda we have sorted that
problem out and it is a LOT cheaper to boot.

IMO those dryer sheets (which I swear they dip into a vat of cheap
perfume before they box them) are good for nothing but getting animal
hair off stuff you cannot wash. For that task they have no equal. I
just hate the smell of them though. I am not fond of most softeners in
general. All they do is put a layer of oil over your fabrics. It does
just what the label says it will, but many many of them feel greasy to
me. Plus it makes your towels and things semi-water resistant, which
seems kind of pointless to me. I do confess that if I have a piece of
fabric that has stiffened up after I am done playing with it, have a
cotton or rayon knit that feels a little crisp. or I have some silk that
has lost drape after working with it, I will wash it with a little
milsoft. Especially if it is yardage I am going to be sewing. It is
easier to sew when it is a little stiff, and paradoxically I don't
hesitate to use a little starch after softening it. It does reduce the
number of popped threads due to needle cutting though.

NightMist
a little manic lately, hence a lot wordy

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 01:55:03 +0000, Jack Campin wrote:

Wool has gotten a reputation, mostly because of cheap wool. Cheaper
wools are usually the coarser wools. Coarse wools can feel prickly and
scratchy on the skin.

My parents used to make things with wool; my father would spin and weave
(he'd come home from work, have his dinner and just trance out at the
spinning wheel for an hour or two) and my mother would knit.
My father was an architect for the New Zealand government, designing
things like post offices, reform schools and scientific research labs.
The local animal husbandry research lab was the biggest job he ever did,
and he ended up being supplied with all the wool he could use from their
Experimental Sheep. Mostly it was brown to beige and whatever you made
from it had a texture like a pot scourer. I still have some of the
sweaters my mum knitted nearly 50 years ago. I think the moths broke
their teeth on them. They finally decided that the wool from the
Experimental Sheep was ideal for making carpets. So imagine wearing
one.

Hee hee!
Once I had a fellow ask me to knit him a sweater from one of his sheep.
I was an eager young thing then, and didn't think to question whether he
knew a darn thing about the animals he was raising. At that age I
assumed everybody knew what they were doing. It was a bit of a shock
when he presented me with a great grimy barely skirted Lincoln fleece.
That was piece of work right there, and needless to say the resultant
sweater was more than a bit itchy. Fortunately he wanted a fancy go
auction sweater that he would be wearing over a shirt and undershirt.

We also got Experimental Wine from the government vineyards, the folks
who created the New Zealand wine industry as it is today. My father
supplemented that with home-made stuff using whatever fruit he could
find, but figured that sterile technique was for wimps. In summer there
was always a wobbling blob of filter bag in the utility room and a line
of bottles along the side of the house bubbling evilly.
(I ended up with fairly strange tastes in wine: currently my fave is the
"Chocolate Shop" wine from our local supermarket with lots of added
sugar and chocolate flavouring. The more expensive wine is,
the more disgusting I'll find it).

We make our own wine and mead (when honey isn't quite so dear). Mostly
because DH cannot handle the sulfites in commercial wine. In a good year
when I am healthy we do cider or scrumpy, and DH does applejack when we
get the long freeze. We tend to prefer fruity wines that are not too dry
here. Not only is it less expensive to make your own, it is easier to
get what you want these days. Plus we can glean the vineyards and make
our own ice wine.

A lot of the time it was like living in an episode of the Simpsons.
I had the Bart role - spent a lot of my time in the shed mixing up
agricultural chemicals to make them pong and go up in coloured flames.

Somewhere back in DH's Scottish ancestry there has got to be at least one
common relative...

NightMist

"NightMist" wrote in message ...

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 00:32:22 -0600, Polly Esther wrote:

Now that we are a bit smarter (?), even the event 'allergic' gives us
pause for thought or backing off and reconsidering. My sister is / was
violently allergic to cats. Now she has a magnificent uppity quite
pretentious QI and no allergy in sight. How much of this was in our
heads?

My vet tells me that it most often the dander not the hair that causes
allergic reactions.
So logically how an allergic person responds is going to vary animal to
animal.

Just lately, my eyes swell, my nose runs and my delicate
sensibilities
are offended by scents in laundry detergent. Druther go pound my wash
in the creek and lay it to dry on the gators. A quandary, methinks.
Polly

We have been using an inexpensive "free & clear" detergent for most of
our laundry. They changed the formula of the stuff we had been using and
the household started breaking out in rashes.
With a 5 year old (DD does her laundry at my house), and a 14 year old to
wash for, sometimes we need to use something a little tougher than the
average cheap liquid, so I turned to Dr Bronner. I had already been
using the liquid castile they sell on wool and silk, so we tried the
sal-suds on the cottons and synthetics. The stuff is the bomb on kid
dirt, works pretty well on greasy spots too. The brand is a little
pricey for every day washing, but for specialty laundry or as an addition
now and again it works.
For your average laundry the scent free cheap stuff with a little vinegar
or a little washing soda works just fine. And as an FYI, laundry soda =
soda ash = swimming pool chemical. I dye so I bought 50 pounds from a
pool supply company. I use it for dyeing, laundry, hardcore cleaning
tasks and cleaning the coffee pot. It's a bit of a godsend because the
fumes from some of the heavier duty cleaning chemicals send DH into an
asthma attack. Between vinegar and washing soda we have sorted that
problem out and it is a LOT cheaper to boot.

IMO those dryer sheets (which I swear they dip into a vat of cheap
perfume before they box them) are good for nothing but getting animal
hair off stuff you cannot wash. For that task they have no equal. I
just hate the smell of them though. I am not fond of most softeners in
general. All they do is put a layer of oil over your fabrics. It does
just what the label says it will, but many many of them feel greasy to
me. Plus it makes your towels and things semi-water resistant, which
seems kind of pointless to me. I do confess that if I have a piece of
fabric that has stiffened up after I am done playing with it, have a
cotton or rayon knit that feels a little crisp. or I have some silk that
has lost drape after working with it, I will wash it with a little
milsoft. Especially if it is yardage I am going to be sewing. It is
easier to sew when it is a little stiff, and paradoxically I don't
hesitate to use a little starch after softening it. It does reduce the
number of popped threads due to needle cutting though.

NightMist
a little manic lately, hence a lot wordy

When I need to use a dryer sheet, I use the unsented that I have cut in
half, to prevent static cling. Other times, I use vinegar.
Barbara in FL


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 24/02/14 23:34, Bobbie Sews more wrote:


"NightMist" wrote in message ...

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 00:32:22 -0600, Polly Esther wrote:

Now that we are a bit smarter (?), even the event 'allergic' gives us
pause for thought or backing off and reconsidering. My sister is / was
violently allergic to cats. Now she has a magnificent uppity quite
pretentious QI and no allergy in sight. How much of this was in our
heads?

My vet tells me that it most often the dander not the hair that causes
allergic reactions.
So logically how an allergic person responds is going to vary animal to
animal.

Just lately, my eyes swell, my nose runs and my delicate
sensibilities
are offended by scents in laundry detergent. Druther go pound my wash
in the creek and lay it to dry on the gators. A quandary, methinks.
Polly

We have been using an inexpensive "free & clear" detergent for most of
our laundry. They changed the formula of the stuff we had been using and
the household started breaking out in rashes.
With a 5 year old (DD does her laundry at my house), and a 14 year old to
wash for, sometimes we need to use something a little tougher than the
average cheap liquid, so I turned to Dr Bronner. I had already been
using the liquid castile they sell on wool and silk, so we tried the
sal-suds on the cottons and synthetics. The stuff is the bomb on kid
dirt, works pretty well on greasy spots too. The brand is a little
pricey for every day washing, but for specialty laundry or as an addition
now and again it works.
For your average laundry the scent free cheap stuff with a little vinegar
or a little washing soda works just fine. And as an FYI, laundry soda =
soda ash = swimming pool chemical. I dye so I bought 50 pounds from a
pool supply company. I use it for dyeing, laundry, hardcore cleaning
tasks and cleaning the coffee pot. It's a bit of a godsend because the
fumes from some of the heavier duty cleaning chemicals send DH into an
asthma attack. Between vinegar and washing soda we have sorted that
problem out and it is a LOT cheaper to boot.

IMO those dryer sheets (which I swear they dip into a vat of cheap
perfume before they box them) are good for nothing but getting animal
hair off stuff you cannot wash. For that task they have no equal. I
just hate the smell of them though. I am not fond of most softeners in
general. All they do is put a layer of oil over your fabrics. It does
just what the label says it will, but many many of them feel greasy to
me. Plus it makes your towels and things semi-water resistant, which
seems kind of pointless to me. I do confess that if I have a piece of
fabric that has stiffened up after I am done playing with it, have a
cotton or rayon knit that feels a little crisp. or I have some silk that
has lost drape after working with it, I will wash it with a little
milsoft. Especially if it is yardage I am going to be sewing. It is
easier to sew when it is a little stiff, and paradoxically I don't
hesitate to use a little starch after softening it. It does reduce the
number of popped threads due to needle cutting though.

NightMist
a little manic lately, hence a lot wordy

When I need to use a dryer sheet, I use the unsented that I have cut in
half, to prevent static cling. Other times, I use vinegar.
Barbara in FL


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---
Dryer sheets also put mice off making a home in the attic. Seems that
they don't like the smell either!!!

Janner
France

I guess I'm one of the rare ones, or just too sensitive - ANY
percentage of wool in a garment makes me break out in a rash. Doesn't
matter what type it is either - mohair, alpaca, sheep... they all
bother me. If I'm very careful, I can handle weaving it (weft only),
but cannot embroider or knit with it. Which is really annoying, as
I love the colors you can dye into the wool.

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 17:45:55 +0000 (UTC), NightMist
wrote:

Just reread this and saw I made a slight boo boo.
I don't know what I was thinking when I typed the number of microns, but
it should be 30 to 35, not 25 to 30. pretty much any wool that averages
under 30 should be comfortable, and the ones under 25 are quite yummy on
the skin. Over 35 and it should be going to outerwear, carpets, and
tapestries instead of next to the skin clothing.
I correct this because sometimes places sell wool and woolens by breed,
or brag about their sheep. Knowing the breed gives you an easily
findable average micron count.

NightMist

On Thu, 20 Feb 2014 15:34:44 +0000, NightMist wrote:

This is all according to how I understand it.
You do not get points off the follow up quiz for proving me wrong. I
appreciate input about such things.

A LOT of people think they are allergic to wool. A lot of them are
wrong.
Wool allergies are actually pretty rare. Much more common are allergies
to lanolin, or the chemicals used to scour or dye commercial wool, or to
make it washable (superwash wool).
It's like if new fabric gives you a rash, but after you wash it a few
times you are fine with it. That happens more often than you would
think.

Wool has gotten a reputation, mostly because of cheap wool. Cheaper
wools are usually the coarser wools. Coarse wools can feel prickly and
scratchy on the skin. It is not what the fiber is made of, it is the
thickness of the individual fibers. If you take almost any fiber that
has an average diameter of 25-30 microns, spin it, and turn it into
fabric it will most likely itch you, possibly to the point of causing a
rash depending on how sensitive your skin is. The greater of the number
of fibers 30 microns or more in diameter, the scratchier it will feel.

Now so far as quilt batting goes, if it is treated to prevent bearding
then you run no risk of itching no matter how coarse the wool is.
Though if you are an allergic person you run the risk of the resins and
chemicals causing a reaction. If it won't beard then the fibers won't
poke you and make you itch after they are sandwiched into the quilt.
A couple of companies are making batting using blends incorporating fine
wools, mostly those from the merino family. I have dressed babies in
merino and they were fine and warm with no rash or discomfort. It seems
a bit overkill for a quilt batting, but if it makes people more
confident about using it then I guess it works.

Anecdote:
One of the places I get spinning fiber from sells mill ends and bin
trash from the Brown Sheep mill. I spun up some bin trash (I am pretty
sure it was from a Wildfoote run as it was superwash and contained
mohair and nylon) and knit some shooting mittens for a particular hunter
of my acquaintance. She loved and wore them for a couple of seasons
before she mentioned to me that she was allergic to wool. She still
wears them, and has decided that she is only allergic to some certain
particular wool. Yeah, really coarse wool. (G)

NightMist