Yak wool
The new quality wool — warm, light and soft, from the Mongolian highlands.
Yak wool deserves to be better known. It's soft, breathable and naturally beautiful in its earthy colours — and it's also one of the gentlest choices you can make. To me, yak is one of the fibres that best tells the story of what Undarmaa is about: a natural material with deep roots in the Mongolian steppe, only now truly being appreciated.
Yak wool comes from the yak — the hardy animal that lives high up in Mongolia's mountains, where few other animals can survive.
- 16-20 µm undercoat — on par with cashmere
- Natural colours — brown, rare grey
- 1,800-4,000 m — Mongolia's highlands
- Warmer than sheep's wool
An ox built for the cold
The yak lives in some of the world's most extreme conditions — in the highlands, where winter can reach −40°C. To survive, it has developed a coat in two layers: an outer layer of coarse guard hair that protects against wind and snow, and, innermost, a dense layer of soft, insulating undercoat called khullu. Only the fine undercoat becomes clothing.
There are around a million yaks in Mongolia, the vast majority in the Khangai and Khövsgöl mountains — especially in Arkhangai province.
Soft, warm and comfortable against the skin
The yak's undercoat measures around 16-20 microns — so fine it can be hard to tell apart from cashmere. It contains only a little natural lanolin, and because the fibres are so fine, they don't scratch; yak wool can be worn directly against the skin.
The wool is temperature-regulating and moisture-wicking, warmer than ordinary sheep's wool, and it retains warmth even when damp. As an added bonus, yak wool doesn't build up static electricity the way many other materials do.
Nature's own colours
Yak wool comes in beautiful earthy colours — from dark chocolate brown to a rare silvery grey we call platinum grey. The dark natural colour makes it hard to dye the wool light without bleaching it, and bleaching damages the fibres. So we generally let yak wool keep its own colour — it's part of its character.
Baby yak — the very finest
The finest yak yarn comes from the youngest animals — baby yak — and is often hand-spun. Hand-spun yarn is a little thicker and more irregular than machine-spun, but wonderfully soft and entirely its own.
The gentler choice
Among our three fibres, yak wool is the most sustainable — and there's a concrete reason for that. Yaks graze high up in the mountains, in terrain the cashmere goats don't reach. So they don't put pressure on the lower-lying steppe areas, where overgrazing is most severe. And where the goat has hard, sharp hooves, the yak walks on broad, soft feet that are gentler on the ground.
In other words, yak wool isn't just a beautiful and warm material — it's also one of the choices with the lightest footprint. Read more on Producers and responsibility.
Also read about Mongolian cashmere, camel wool and Mongolia.
