Is It the Real Thing?

By Lorraine Caputo

You ignore the bustling hum of the market around you. You have found a beautiful sweater to keep you warm in these chilly Andes. “Oh, yes, it’s wool,” the vendor says with a friendly smile.

Ah, but the age-old question pops up in your mind: Is it the real thing—or synthetic?

You can still rely on touch to tell you—to some degree. Sheep wool is thick and “itchy.” Alpaca wool is fine, soft—and rolls down compactly, yet springs back to its original density when unrolled. Synthetics—polyester, nylon and what-not—feels, well, synthetic, right? Uh, not any more. Increasingly these fibers have become almost equal in touch to their natural competitors.

But there is still one fool-proof way to know for sure whether that sweater you are yearning is the real, all-natural, 100% thing.

The secret is always to carry a pack of matches in your pocket when you head out to the market to shop for textiles. A lighter will work, also.

First, pick a bit of fuzz off the sweater, being careful not to pull the yarns of the garment. Twirl the fuzz to make a strand. Strike a match and burn your strand.

Plant fibers—cotton, linen, ramie and even silk (after all, it comes from mulberry leaves!)—will turn to a fine, light-colored ash.

Animal fibers—whether from lamb, sheep, alpaca, llama or even critters like qiviut and yak (yes, this test will work on any continent)—will singe and smell like burnt hair.

Synthetics will melt into a small black ball and smell like burnt plastic.

If that sweater is a mix of natural animal and synthetic fibers, it will both singe and melt; by how much it does of either, you can pretty much calculate the percentage of blend.

You might find yourself saying to that friendly vendor, “And from just what type of animal did this wool come from, a Polyester?”