I’ve talked a lot about the annoying, unreasonable sort of pills that indicate a lousy garment, poorly made (you can see the shoddy Madewell sweater saga over here, should you wish to do such a thing). But some pilling is just part of the life of a sweater. And today I was tidying up what seemed like completely reasonable case of pills, so it seemed only fair to show what reasonable pilling looks like (if you want to watch me do it and listen while I talk about it, you can see a video over here, it’s a public post and anyone can see it)!

Pills happen when the ends of the fiber a fabric is made of wiggle free from the yarn, wiggle free from the fabric, and tangle up with their neighbors. They’ll happen first in spots with the highest friction like under your arms or where your purse strap or seat belt regularly rub your sweater.

The longer the staple length of the fiber, and the sturdier the fiber is, the fewer of those little ends there are to wiggle free and get knotted up. And the more tightly twisted the yarn and the more densely knit (or woven) the fabric is, the harder it is for the ends that do exist to break free.

This explains why the horrible terrible no good very crumpled dry cleaning bags Madewell called sweaters were literally covered in handfuls of pills the size of grapes the first time they were worn. The yarn on those was ‘recycled cashmere,’ which was code for super short cashmere fibers, literally either chipped up bits from discarded fabric or the dust left over from producing higher quality pieces. It was loosely spun into yarn that was super soft, but which had basically no twist and no structure to hold the tiny short bits of fiber in place. And then it was loosely knit into fabric that did nothing to stabilize the fluffy mess of the yarn. So naturally, they were absolutely covered in pills and looked like trash starting from the very first time I wore them. And they fell completely to pieces (huge holes) within a few months of wear. This on a product the promoted as being more environmentally responsible because it was using recycled yarn, even though the people who designed the fabric should have known that it would fall apart after less than a season of light wear. (And yes, before someone asks, I did reach out to Madewell, and their super disappointing response, shared in the posts linked above, is why I’m still calling out their bullshit three years later.)

By contrast, this sweater, after nearly a year of fairly consistent wear, is just now getting some light pilling under the arms. Which is a totally reasonable thing for a sweater to do after this much wear! This one is by Bananna Republic (it’s their fireside sweater from last year and no longer listed, but this one seems to be the same base fabric just in a slightly different cut for this year). It’s 55% merino wool, 45% cotton. And it’s not as absolutely cloud soft as the ball of dandelion fluff that went into the Madewell sweater, but it’s still very comfortable (for me) to wear without anything under it.

The sturdier materials (merino and cotton instead of cashmere dust), more tightly twisted yarn, and more tightly knit fabric mean it’s got years of wear left in it. That doesn’t mean it won’t pill at all! You can see that after seven months or so of pretty heavy wear (it went away for a while in the summer and is coming back out now), it absolutely has some pills under the arms. But they’re the normal, reasonable amount of pills you’d expect from any wool, not the sweater dandruff disaster of the other guys. I’m going to clean them off and the sweater probably won’t be fuzzy again for another six months at least.

The gizmo I’m using to get the pills off is by Gleener, it’s their Sweater Saver, and I have half a dozen of them stationed all around my house (by the laundry, by the door where I come in and out the house, in my main closet, in my car…wherever I’m likely to notice pills). The company is great (I love them enough that I included them in one of the goodie bags we did earlier this year), and I have nothing but great things to say about them and all their products. They make it easier to maintain the clothes you have, which is a good way to actually be more environmentally responsible.

Plus it’s more fun than I should probably admit to make a big ole pile o fluff…