Lanolin and soap are extensively used to care for woollies. Pharmaceutical grade lanolin (such as our RolanMED) is available in the market as well as the organic glycerine based soaps that are super-fatted, i.e. added with extra lanolin. This way you can combine lanolizing with the washing in just one step. Here is how you can care for your wool with deep lanolization –

How can lanolin help take care of your baby’s woollies?

For those who don’t know what Lanolin is, it is “a highly refined & purified natural grease that originates as a unique substance secreted by sheep from the sebaceous glands in their skin to form a natural protective coating on the wool fibers”.

You don’t need to wash your woollies when they are soiled with pee. Dry them and if they don’t smell, you can use them again. Although if they still smell of pee, then you need to wash them before you lanolize them. Lanolin gives the wool its anti-bacterial and water-resisting powers. The chemical makeup of lanolin reacts to the chemical makeup in your child’s pee to neutralize ammonia into water and salt. In simple words, this means that it turns your kids’ urine into water and salt. If there is stool on the woollies you can still clean them up and use it again. If your woollies no longer have the protective barrier the way they used to, i.e. when the lanolin is used up and your wool smells like urine after you have dried them- it is time to lanolize them.

How does one wash and lanolize their woollies?

You can use a wool wash or baby wash detergent (as you wish) to get the dirt off your woollies. Make sure you take off all the dirt on your woollies before you lanolize it. You may hand wash it or wash it in a washing machine, but keep your machine in a wool/gentle cycle setting, cool to warm water mode, with a mild detergent or baby shampoo.

Step two is to rinse the wool so that there is no more dirty-water is stored in your woollies. You don’t want to lanolize your wool and trap all that gunk in your baby’s woollies. Then, turn your wool inside-out. This is where lanolin is the most effective.

Now, you draw your lanolin bath. The best way to do that? First, take a cup full of water and heat it a bit before adding a teaspoon/ tablespoon of pure lanolin – e.g. RolanMED – depending upon how much wool you are washing (1 tsp per piece of wool). Also, add some squirts of baby wash into the cup. Stir the mixture until it looks like milk. (Note - You have to make sure your water is warm enough and that the lanolin is dissolved properly.)

Once you have a clear milky substance with no floating pieces, you add this mixture into a warm water bath (one with no extra soap) and then add your woollies inside out. Soak them in at least 30 minutes. Then take your woollies out, squish out the water (only use a spin-only cycle for your washer). After all, this is done, hang them to dry. Now, your baby is free to use fresh and nice-smelling woollies.