More Casual talk on Camel Hair
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016
Back once more with respect to finding out, what, Scott? Camel hair! What is camel hair? Well, for one, it is made out of… Camel hair. It is different than any kind of specific categorization of camel hair or animal hair or some kind of other thing. However, the basic premise does stand that is that camel hair and, therefore, it is a natural fibre.
In particular, an animal fibre, for those that have not been following this particular series, deals with one of the basic premises behind those close to the sustainability movement, even closer than newbies like me. That is, the focus on ethical, sustainable, and healthy fashion with the emphasis on natural – animal and plant – fibres over synthetic fibres. There might be subtleties unknown to me, known to you, or known to the veterans of this trade and business, but I don’t know about them at this point in time. Think for yourself.
So, the main differences are between synthetic or man-made fibres, and natural fibres. Natural fibres divide into animal and plant fibres. Plant fibres are those, at least primarily, made of cellulose and other things. Animal fibres are made of proteins in particular things like amino acids, which makes proteins.
Synthetic fibres or man-made fibres are not made of either cellulose or amino acids/proteins. In fact, when something is not made of cellulose or proteins/amino acids, the bio-degradation of the product will actually not occur because the synthetic fibres that are made by human beings don’t permit it. It’s basically like the way plastics, which are synthetic, do not bio-degrade as far as we know about them. And the ones that are made by nature are made of it because of a common evolutionary history in which the enzymes around it and that co-evolved with it can break these particular things down to their more fundamental constituents.
I want to make the distinction between natural fibres as plant/animal fibres, and synthetic or man-made fibres. You can then make the distinction between those that can decompose more or less, and those that cannot decompose. In other words, this means that the natural fibres can decompose, hot or cold composting, and the synthetic fibres do not.
So with some of that in mind, or all that in mind, we can now discuss some of the aspects of camel hair, which is a particular type of animal hair that can break down and is from camels. Our big ol’ double humpbacked friend! Or single humped buddy.
Camel hair is a fine kind of hair, which is made of an outer and an inner part in terms of its growth patterns. It’s outer protective hair or guard hair, which can be coarse and flexible, is often combined with another kind of fibre called wool – a more common form of fibre. The hair has various applications. You look at the camels and their hair, and their sales.
They do have particular specialty hair that can be utilized as a specialty fibre, which is useful in the textile fibre industry. But it comes from a particular type of camel known as the Bactrian camel, which we did talk about it one article a few weeks ago. It can actually grow to quite long. It is a fair sustainable fibre, which also has an insulating undercoat.
Now, what comes to mind here, the coat itself, which can be used as a high-grade form of a fabric. The fabric is mainly used for knitting yarn, blankets and rugs and many, many other textiles.
The Bactrian camel does remain native to the Eastern and Central Asian areas of the world with the current herd size, according to 2009 estimates, of about 1.4 million animals. Oh! And the actual shearing or dehairing occurs during the time of moulting, the moulting season, which is a period of time between six to eight weeks of shedding.
Yuck! It can hold up to, one of those camel can yield up to, about 5 to 10 kilograms of annual fibre output. That’s quite a lot. In fact, it can actually produce a lot more than one might expect in normal circumstances. The center of the production appears to be in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and, as seems usual (or so I’m catching on), China and a lot of minor aspects can come out of Afghanistan and Iran.
I find it interesting that it can be centralized to Eastern Asia and the Middle East in terms of its Harvest and production and manufacture prior to distribution to other parts of the world. I’m going to assume that some of the major consumers of the fibre itself, the animal fibre itself, are North American and European in destination or origin depending upon the point of view. The international market shows that there’s about 2,000 tons of coming from China and 500 tons coming from Mongolia according to 1990 estimates.
That’s not much with some of the other estimates of other fibres taken into account. Many estimates coming from Mongolia from peasants or low technology societies that are likely indigenous to that area probably produce money that amounts to millions of dollars or a great amount of their well-being, livelihood, and income might be coming here so that involves the children, adults, and the elderly in terms of their ability to live within their own culture of which, which is one of the fundamental human rights, far as I’m concerned. So, it’s a lot for the peasants and a little for the world – so to speak, and in a literal fashion as well.
Some interesting uses of camel hair can make things like yurts or the houses of the nomadic herders as well as exporting yarns and overcoats and coats and blazers and suits and jackets and sweaters, and even winter accessories such as small things like gloves and hats and scarves to help knit some warm stuff for the body’s outer extremities.
Well, what are the major aspects of this is a mixture with wool? Why would it become mixed with a wool over other possible fibres? That’s a reasonable question, and I asked it myself. Well, it does seem to be mixed with the wool to make it more economical because of the low output of camel fibre relative to international standards of other fibres, which can range from the thousands to the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands, and even more, tons of material. So, it really, really depends on the area and the type of fibre that you want to take into account.
However, with respect to the global perspective, the 500 tonnes are quite miniscule relative to the rest of the world. Even though, the number of products that are made are quite diverse. The actual amount of them is quite low. Therefore, the admixture between wool and the camel hair is likely for a good reason.
That’s all for now, folks!
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