Wool in the Summer

HOW WOOL KEEPS YOU COOL IN THE SUMMER

Wool in the summer—while it may sound counterintuitive at first, it’s actually surprisingly effective.

That’s because yak and camel wool possess several fascinating properties:

• Insulation from the outside: The fine fibers of our yak and camel wool insulate against external heat and prevent your body from overheating.
• High breathability: Our yak and camel wool clothing is woven less densely than cotton or synthetic fibers. This allows excess heat to be better dissipated outward and prevents heat buildup.
• Natural temperature regulation: Yak and camel wool absorbs sweat as water vapor into the fibers and releases it outward. This creates evaporative cooling, which cools the skin without making the fabric feel damp.
• Quick-drying: Our yak and camel wool dries quickly and absorbs up to 35% of its weight in moisture, so you won’t feel wet even in high temperatures or during sweaty activities.
• Odor-resistant: The unique fiber structure and rapid moisture release give bacteria no chance to thrive, keeping you free of unpleasant odors for longer.
• UV protection: Yak and camel wool naturally offer a high UV protection factor of 40–50+, helping to protect your skin from the sun in summer when UV exposure is at its highest and you spend most of your time outdoors.
• Keeps you warm when it does get cold: Even the hottest summer days come to an end. After sunset or during thunderstorms, temperatures often drop suddenly—especially in the mountains. If your clothes are soaked with sweat, even the air conditioning on the train is often enough to give you a cold the next day. Because wool keeps you warm even when wet, it reliably protects you in these situations and helps keep you out of that nasty summer cold.

WHAT MAKES CAMEL WOOL SO EXTRAORDINARY

You often hear that thin merino wool is the best choice for summer—we disagree.

Wool's cooling effect depends largely on two factors: its ability to insulate against external heat and its ability to absorb, store, and release moisture to generate evaporative cooling. In both categories, camel wool is significantly superior to merino wool. The fine, hollow fibers of camel wool provide excellent insulation against external heat—it’s no coincidence that camels can spend days and weeks in the desert at temperatures above 113 °F, where they’re also exposed to direct sunlight.

At the same time, our thicker camel wool fabrics absorb more moisture than our competitors’ thin merino layers—they gradually release it to the outside, continuously generating more evaporative cooling than merino wool would.

This mechanism can be observed in camels in the wild: They produce small amounts of moisture that become trapped in their undercoat and, through evaporation, gradually generate cooling within the undercoat itself.

Gobi Desert – Home of the Bactrian Camel

The coolness generated in this way is effectively insulated from the ambient heat by the overlying wool, so that the camel’s body remains cool for a long time. These two properties—temperature regulation through evaporative cooling and insulation against external heat—make camel wool the best material for the height of summer, keeping you comfortably cool even at temperatures up to 113 °C.

Camel wool works best in dry, hot climates. In humid tropical climates, such as rainforests, our camel shirts are too heavy to regulate temperature effectively; with humidity around 90%, a heavy camel undershirt wouldn’t generate enough evaporative cooling to keep you cool. No worries – we’re already working on a lighter Rainforest Shirt to fill this gap.

YAK WOOL IN THE SUMMER

Yak wool is also an excellent choice for milder summer days. Our yak wool T-shirts keep you comfortably cool at temperatures up to 30 °C before you start to feel too warm.

For more color and style, we recommend the yak wool polo shirts from our partner company, the Rocky Mountain Shirt Company. You can find the collection here.