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Golden Fleece Australian Eco Wool - Mercurius Australia
Golden Fleece Australian Eco Wool - Mercurius Australia

Golden Fleece Australian Eco Wool

Golden Fleece Australian Eco-Wool is grown, spun and dyed in Australia with a commitment to sustainability, the health of humanity, animal welfare and the care of the environment.

All Golden Fleece wool comes from non-mulesed sheep, grown and raised on Australian farms. Following the scouring and washing of our wool using eco-friendly detergents, Golden Fleece is spun and dyed using traditional skills and supporting local business in regional Australia.  

We do not super wash our finished wool, which means no environmentally harming chlorine washes or polymer coverings are used to alter the natural durability and finish. Golden Fleece wool can be hand washed in cool water.

Our wool is equally suited to knitting, crocheting, weaving or any craft item and will felt well. Available as 8ply, 12ply and 16ply, in undyed or a range of vibrant colourfast colours.

View our range of Golden Fleece Wool

The Ins and Outs of Sustainable Wool

Through our own branded Golden Fleece Australian Eco-Wool, Mercurius Australia offers the highest quality, locally sourced wool, manufactured using sustainable practices from beginning to end.

We are often asked what makes our wool sustainable and eco-friendly. After all, isn't all wool natural? The answer to this question, is that yes, wool is natural, but as with all natural products, processing and growing methods play an important part in the finished product. For transparency, we are sharing some of the factors we have considered when choosing the source and processing methods of our wool, and questions we encourage you to explore when reading a label that says 100% Wool:

1. Animal Welfare - Did you know most Australian Wool is from mulesed sheep? At Mercurius we are committed to use only certified and traceable wool from non-mulesed sheep, sourced 100% from Australian farms that are committed to practical alternatives to mulesing. Through this committment, we help support farmers to develop humane and practical alternatives to mulesing. Learn more about the history and practice of mulesing.

Eco wool production process for Golden Fleece Australian Eco Wool in Australia

2. Breed of Sheep - Our wool is sourced from Merino Border Leicester sheep. At 29 microns, it offers a good quality, soft wool, with long strands. While being strong and with a good crimp, it is a type of wool, prized by spinners, good for knitting and crafting. Merino is softer yet again, but less robust, and wool from a Perendale sheep would produce a much coarser wool, more suitable to the durability and toughness required in carpet manufacture.

3. Scouring - this is the process of washing the fleece straight from the sheep,and preparing it for spinning. With the decline of industry in Australia, Australian Wool is shipped off-shore for this process. Most is sent to China with little regulation or care for the environment, detergents used, water conservation or contamination. Looking for a more sustainable way, Mercurius wool is still sent off-shore, but to Egypt, where it is washed and prepared at a certified organic facility, under strict regulation, using eco-detergents and water-wise methods. A bonus we have discovered is the softness of our wool, compared to if was to be washed with harsher detergents - a win-win for the environment, detergent residues remaining in the wool, and we have beautiful soft, cuddly wool to work with!

4. Spinning - this is the process of turning beautifully washed and carded fleece into wool, ready to knit, crochet or craft with. As with scouring, Wool Mills were once common in Australia, but like many specialised, labour-intensive, industries, Australian Wool Mills have almost all closed their doors, and Australian Wool is completely processed off-shore, to return to our shelves and the unaware consumer, as 'Australian Wool'. At Mercurius we want to support Australian industry and the specialised skills to keep this industry alive. We work closely with a wool mill in regional Victoria, where wool is spun using traditional techniques on century old steel machines. These machines are a work of art in themselves, and dwindling world-wide. Through the production of Golden Fleece Wool, Mercurius is helping to keep the artisan skill alive and is giving new life to these amazing industrial-machines and the knowledge needed to maintain them!

5. Colour – Carefully selected colourfast dyes are used create the vibrant colour of our wool. Knowing our wool is developed for the Steiner Classroom, the colours have been carefully blended to perfectly match the Goethean colour wheel and the range of STOCKMAR products they will be found alongside. As well as forming a beautiful rainbow of colours, the colours have a vibrant and ‘living’ quality that resonates with the developing soul of the child.

6. Superwashing - another process little spoken about or understood when we buy 100% Natural Wool, but one that Mercurius has actively said NO to, in the production of our Golden Fleece Eco-Wool. In our busy world, convenience often overshadows many of the tasks of the house-hold. The careful, timely washing of wool and wool clothing is one of these tasks. To make wool washable, industry has added a new process to wool production - Super-Washing. When wool is super-washed s the last step in production, it undergoes a special process to allow machine washing, most commonly coating in an invisible polymer coating to seal the fibres. This leaves a plastic-like coating on the wool, which is invisible to the eye, but seals wool fibres to help prevent shrinkage. Read more about this process and what it means to your 100% Natural Wool.

Healthy sheep producing non-mulesed natural wool for Golden Fleece in Australia

What is Non-Mulesed Wool?

Mulesing was developed in 1931 by Mr John Mules to protect sheep against ‘fly strike’. ‘Fly strike’ is a serious condition where flies do what flies do, and lay eggs in the folds of skin on a sheep’s bottom. Mulesing is the procedure developed to surgically remove these folds of skin, leaving a smooth bottom and nowhere for the flies to lay their eggs.

A complex issue, developed to avoid a serious condition, all too common in the heat of Australia, mulesing remains a common practice on Australian sheep farms. In 2019, the Government estimated approximately 70% of Merino wool-producing sheep in Australia are mulesed.

Around the world, mulesing has come under increased scrutiny especially around the question of animal welfare. This has led to alternatives being trialled and adapted in many parts of the world. While mulesing is still wide-spread in Australia, it is now banned by many countries.

To avoid the serious condition of 'fly-strike', less severe and more humane alternatives to mulesing is possible. Breeding to encourage ‘smooth bottomed’ sheep is one such alternative, as is douching with blowfly growth deterrent chemicals.

Golden Fleece Australian Eco-Wool is committed to supporting farmers to develop humane and practical alternatives to mulesing by securing certified, non-mulesed wool as our raw fleece.

All Golden Fleece wool is traceable back to certifed non-mulesed sheep, grown and raised on Australian farms.

Golden Fleece Wool - Handwash with Care

Super Washing - the difference between Hand Washable and Machine Washable Wool

In our age of busy lifestyles, we often look for ways to reduce some of the tasks of daily life and our growing workload.

In its natural state, wool is water repellent, fire retardant, maintains warmth, is anti-bacterial and breathable. These are some of the properties you hear advertised by the 'fans' of wool. The properties that make merino wool a favourite amongst sports people – it keeps you warm, keeps you cool, wicks sweat from your body and keeps those smelly bacteria at bay!

In other words, wool provides a layer of insulation and protection without sealing us in. It lets us breathe with the world – keeping us warm when needed and allowing air to circulate.

As with all natural products, the more we process it, the further we take it away from its natural properties, and the more impact we have on the environment.

One of the final steps in Wool production is a process called 'Super Washing'. Super Washing is the process that has turned 'Hand-Wash with Care Wool' into 'Machine Washable Wool' - in other words, the process our busy lives have demanded!

Super Washing is completed as one of the last steps in wool processing. There are two main methods of super washing:

  • Either immersing or washing the spun wool in a chlorine acid solution to flatten the barbs that would normally catch and felt the wool together, or
  • or, the more common second method, (which is often combined with the first), to add a resin polymer coating to the wool – effectively sealing the wool in a plastic coating.

When you read machine washable on a wool label, this means it has undergone special processing to stop or reduce wool felting and/or shrinkage, and will most likely be coated in an invisible polymer coating to seal the fibres.

While this may be great news for our busy lifestyles, with the growing concerns around micro-plastics and our environment, the question needs to be posed as to the real environmental impact of the resulting plastic coated wool.

Golden Fleece Australian Eco-Wool is 100% natural, hand washable wool – please follow all old-fashioned, tried and tested, wool care instructions.

And if you are seeking wool as a natural fibre, wish to make full use of it's feltability, or just want truly breathable clothing, stick with wool that has 'Hand Wash with Care' on the label!