First of all, you need to know that sheep's wool naturally contains lanolin (wool fat). This is a special substance that makes wool water-repellent and durable. This is important to make sheep feel nice and clean.
Without lanolin, her wool and thus herself would be more exposed to the elements. The individual wool hairs would quickly condense into dreadlocks and store penetrating rainwater for too long. Because did you know that wool absorbs 30% of its own weight before it feels wet?
That's pretty clever, because otherwise the sheep probably wouldn't have survived the evolution. However, if the 30% were exceeded because only long dreadlocks were left hanging on the sheep, then the sheep might catch a cold and sniffle, making it easy for predators to find them.
This means that if you walk in the rain for a long time, your jacket will get wetter on the outside over time (especially in northern German drizzle weather), but you will still feel dry. And it also means that when a nappy liner is full, the excess liquid is absorbed by the wool cover itself and doesn't go straight into the clothing.
So how fortunate that lanolin exists!
Our fabrics and the clothes you sew from them also occasionally need lanolin. Now that there are no more sheep hanging from the wool fibers, we have to give them what they need.
There are several ways to grease wool, but don't worry, they're all very simple.
First of all we have to differentiate - do you just want to care for the wool and make it soft, or do you want to make it really water-repellent and weather-resistant?
In the first case, you may have a few normal pieces of clothing in front of you that you have been using for a while and have washed often that you just want to take care of. The fabric may even feel a bit rough.
The second is more about winter jackets or shoes made of boiled wool, or cloth diapers (you can sew them out of boiled wool, wool terry, wool fleece and wool jersey - I recommend wool terry).
Above all, you should re-grease your wool diapers or wool jackets after washing, after a long period of use or sometimes when the diaper has become particularly wet and the wool fat seems to have been used up. Thanks to its wonderful natural properties, new wool has a self-cleaning effect. You don't have to wash your worn woolen clothes often. Often a simple airing (in the bathroom while someone is showering or overnight on the balcony) is enough to get them hygienically clean again. Even woolen overpants only need to be washed every 2-3 weeks depending on how they are used (or if they are very dirty - here it is often sufficient to treat the affected areas with wool grease soap and a brush). You'll know when it's appropriate.
This is followed by a water-repellent grease. And you can find out exactly how this works HERE in our pdf (download as always possible without registration, just download it :-) )
You can also get Sonett's wool cure with lanolin in our shop.
You can order wool fat in any pharmacy (note: it should not contain any water or other additives - pure lanolin! It must not be white, then there is water in the wool fat).