Country or region: Massachusetts/USA

Message: I am allergic to lanolin and wool.  I assume it's the lanolin IN the wool that causes the problem.  A spinner recently asked me if I was also allergic to superwash wool since the lanolin is removed.  I am doing some skin patch tests of my own with some of her roving.  Do you think Superwash is a good option, or is it all trial and error?  Have you heard from anyone else with this problem?

There's more than one problem involved in wool sensitivity. Some people who are allergic to wool are allergic to lanolin, while others have a problem with the wool fiber itself. In many cases, the latter is not a true allergy, merely a reaction to the scratchiness of the wool, but there's no reason why a true allergy to the wool fiber could not exist. It's certainly possible that small fragments of wool fiber could provoke an immune response, with or without lanolin. 

I don't know whether Superwash wool is 100% free of lanolin, but the extensive chemical treatment involved in its manufacture, and all the associated washing, makes it seem very likely. Doing your own skin test with low-lanolin wool is a good idea. There's no other way to find out whether or not you can tolerate that wool. Just don't be too slow to remove the test sample if you have a bad reaction! It makes sense in this case to try it for yourself; if you go to an allergist, they will base their advice on skin tests, which are just a more refined form of trial and error. If you do go to an allergist, you may wish to take some samples of yarn with you.
 
My mother, Jan Burch, is badly allergic to lanolin, and has never tried the Superwash wool. She can tell very quickly if she touches wool with any lanolin in it, because she gets a burning sensation in her skin almost immediately, but some allergies can take a day or two to become obvious. She suggests that you try yarns made from cashmere or alpaca, as neither provokes an allergic response in her, since the animals they come from are quite different from sheep. However, you must always be careful to check each batch of yarn. On one occasion, she was working with some angora yarn; angora, being made from rabbits, is free of lanolin. However, it turned out that there was some wool in the fiber blend. Wool is frequently included in blends with other fibers because of the usefulness of its crimp.

I would be very interested in knowing whether you, with your allergy to lanolin, are able to tolerate Superwash wool. I'm sorry that I can't tell you in advance how likely this is to be true.

Followup:
Thank you so much for your kind reply.  I wanted to let you know that I am successfully knitting a pair of socks from superwash wool.

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