How do you clean a yak? Or at least, yarn spun from yak fiber….or musk ox fiber, cashmere, paco-vicuña, or any other specialty non-wool luxury fiber? The wool wash you’re accustomed to reaching for to clean your fine handknits isn’t necessarily the best choice for these special fibers. Many wool washes contain lanolin, the animal oil that occurs naturally in wool - but if you’re cleaning a fine piece of handwork that has no wool in it, why would you want to introduce lanolin to a fiber that has never had it to begin with? What you’re looking for a true no-residue fine fabric and fiber wash - Allure Fiber Wash.
Allure Fine Fiber & Fabric Wash is the brainchild of Bijou Basin Ranch’s Eileen Koop. Before she became a yak rancher and yarn designer, Eileen Koop spent over 30 years as a consumer product chemist. Her deep knowledge of household cleaning chemistry coupled with her hands-on experience with the luxury yarns developed by Bijou Basin Ranch assures the consumer that Allure is uniquely formulated to handle the cleaning challenges of exotic fibers and the garments made from them. Today, Eileen shares more of the Allure story with us in this quick interview with her!
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| Eileen Koop, creator of Allure |
Tell us a little bit about your illustrious background in the wonderful world of chemistry.
I’ve been doing product development for consumer product companies for over 35 years. I typically say I’ve done everything from air fresheners to zit creams and everything in between, but I’ve never done paint! I’ve done soaps, cosmetics, skin care, personal care, household cleaners and laundry products. I've worked for companies like Airwick Industries, Colgate Palmolive, Scotts Liquid, and Orange Glo International. My largest accomplishment was to develop the Alpha Hydrox line of skin care products which literally created the ‘anti-aging’ skin care category. I was VP of development for Orange Glo, the makers of “OxiClean.”
How did the idea for Allure come about?
We always thought about doing a laundry and hand wash product for the natural fibers category but were incredibly busy building the Bijou Basin Ranch brand. In 2013, I finally found the time to start developing Allure and quickly realized there was nothing out there that was truly designed for the more exotic (meaning non-sheep wool) natural fibers. We decided that Allure would be best for this area, especially since yak fiber was what we are all about. The non-sheep wool fibers do not need to be harshly stripped of animal oils and lanolin, but they do need a solid and good cleaning and protection type of wash.
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| Allure & luxury yarn: a match made in heaven! |
What do you feel sets Allure apart from other products in its category?
Allure is developed to have everything these fibers need and nothing that they don’t. Since I was doing this for our own company, I didn’t have a marketing or production department breathing down my neck about cost. I looked at it from the standpoint that I wanted a natural product that biodegraded rapidly so it didn’t need to be rinsed and also from a people body wash standpoint that would remove people oils (technically called sebum!) and have a moisturizing affect. So what Allure is is a solid cleanser, natural, no rinse and a fiber moisturizer. Your fibers are clean and have a slightly softened feel after the wash.
As a chemist, what do you wish the average consumer understood a little better about cleaning products in general?
That lots of suds does NOT mean good cleaning! Foam in your washing machine is not an indication of cleaning, it’s just foam. Also, that the stripped feeling on your skin after using soap is not ’clean’ - it is de-fatted. Most soaps literally strip the oils from your skin!
Haven't tried Allure yet? Click here to request your free sample, or click here to shop online!
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