Have you ever wondered about the many inexpensive cashmere scarves offered for sale on the street or online? After reading this article, nothing will surprise you anymore.

During test purchases online, as well as in contact with dealers from India or Nepal, we repeatedly encounter scarves labeled "100% cashmere" or "70% cashmere, 30% silk," yet costing remarkably little, sometimes even less than 20 euros. Considering that even low-quality cashmere wool costs around 100 dollars per kilo unprocessed (!) and that a pashmina scarf weighs at least 180 grams, it's easy to see that something is amiss. Other manufacturers or sellers try to indicate high quality with terms like "gold" and "silver" or classifications such as A, B, and C. These designations are pure fabrications and suggest a counterfeit rather than a high-quality cashmere product. Under a microscope, one can see what many of these cheap scarves are made of. Often, they are viscose or other synthetic fibers, the purchase price for dealers is less than one euro, or they are treated sheep's wool. When you wear such products, you soon feel the difference in quality on your own skin: only cashmere feels like cashmere.

How can consumers protect themselves from fraud?

The label
We regularly conduct quality checks on our own goods and therefore know what to look out for: First, it's worth taking a look at the label and considering how accurately the manufacturer specifies the materials. The correct material declaration is the one required by the German Textile Labeling Act, such as "70% cashmere, 30% silk" or "100% cashmere" or "Pure cashmere". Declarations like "100% pashmina", on the other hand, are suspicious, as pashmina is neither a type of wool nor a textile designation permitted under German law. With this false declaration, resourceful retailers try to circumvent difficulties during customs inspections and avoid criminal and civil consequences. You can be almost certain that a scarf labeled "pashmina" contains not a single gram of cashmere.

The fabric
The fabric itself can also reveal a lot about its quality. If the fabric is cold and slightly shiny, it is almost certainly viscose. This inferior synthetic fiber is frequently used in Turkish, Indian, and Chinese imitations because it is easy to produce and very cheap. If, on the other hand, the fabric feels warm, this suggests cashmere, but could also indicate synthetic materials such as polyethylene or polyester. So how do you distinguish between "warm" cashmere fabrics and synthetic fibers? The simplest method is the so-called burn test: Pluck a few fibers from the fabric and light them. If they burn quickly and the smoke smells like burnt paper, then it is probably viscose. If a bright, large flame forms, this suggests synthetic fibers such as polyethylene or polyester. Depending on the specific composition of these synthetic fibers, the sample may melt into a small lump when burned. Wool, or more specifically cashmere, can be identified by its low flammability, the sweetish smell of burnt hair or fingernails, and the fact that the fiber residue forms bulbous nodules that can be rubbed away. This leaves the question, however, of how to distinguish cashmere from other types of wool, such as the significantly cheaper treated sheep's wool.

The fringes
Just as an unbiased observer would, we pay particular attention to the appearance of the fringe. Our fringe is neatly twisted and always carefully knotted. You will also never see white spots on the fringe when you gently loosen the knots, unlike what is unfortunately often encountered: such white spots indicate that the pashmina was dyed only after it had been finished. Indian pashmina counterfeiters, in particular, resort to this trick for cost reasons.

Our quality assurance
Merck's merchandise encyclopedia from 1884 hits the nail on the head:
"Even now, genuine Indian scarves are a prized item, transcending all fashion trends. However, trading in them requires the same level of expertise that a gemstone dealer must possess in his field."

This quote remains as valid as ever, even over 120 years later. Unfortunately, the counterfeits – for example, through newly introduced methods for processing inferior sheep's wool – are now so good that expertise alone is no longer sufficient.

We regularly inspect our cashmere products under a Bresser microscope with 1,000x magnification. Since such a superficial inspection is insufficient, we also have the quality of our goods tested by an internationally recognized laboratory in Germany. If the quality is unsatisfactory, for example, if impurities are detected in the cashmere, we return the goods to the supplier without hesitation.

Further information

• Information on textile testing procedures (especially the burn test) can be found in specialist literature, e.g.: Alfons Hofer: Fabrics. Volume 1: Raw Materials: Fibers, Yarns and Effects, Frankfurt 2000
• On the history of cashmere scarves: Merck's Merchandise Lexicon, entry "Shawl", Volume 21, 3rd edition, Leipzig 1884.