Textiles made from premium animal fibers are frequently counterfeited — repeatedly and often without being detected.
Especially for high-value fibers such as cashmere, the economic incentive for mislabeling is significant. In several cases, products advertised as “100% Cashmere” were reported by the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute not to be cashmere, but acrylic, polyester or other synthetic materials.
At the same time, EU textile labeling regulation requires fiber composition to be clearly declared. Terms such as “100%”, “pure” or “all” may only be used for products consisting exclusively of the same fiber.
Reliable verification remains demanding: classical microscopic methods such as light microscopy or SEM require experienced experts to evaluate individual fibers — a slow and error-prone process, especially for morphologically similar animal fibers.
HairSense addresses exactly this point: AI-assisted fiber analysis for more objective, faster and scalable testing processes along the textile value chain.
For morphological testing, individual fibers must be isolated from the sample, prepared, imaged under the microscope and evaluated based on subtle surface features.
Quantitative statements are not based on a single image, but on the evaluation of many separate fibers.
Scale edges, transitions and surface structures can look very similar across animal species.
A purely manual process is difficult to scale for incoming goods, supplier release and serial quality control.
For morphological testing, fibers are first isolated from the textile, yarn or raw-fiber sample. Individual fibers are then imaged under the microscope and evaluated based on characteristic surface features. This enables comparison of scale pattern, scale density, scale height and further distinguishing features.
Reliable differentiation of premium animal fibres comes from the combined pattern of measurable surface and structural features.
The distinction is not based on a single measurement, but on the combination of multiple features. As rough reference values, cashmere fibres are often in the range of about 12–19 µm, yak fibres around 16–22 µm, and wool or fine wool across a broader range of about 19–40 µm. These values must always be interpreted together with the surface structure.
Testing becomes especially challenging for industrially processed materials: chemical and mechanical treatments can make lower-value fibres appear visually and morphologically closer to premium fibres. HairSense therefore combines many measurable parameters and evaluates them reproducibly across a larger number of individual fibres.
Reference values: IWTO-58 / Round Trials · Phan & Wortmann
The challenge is not only distinguishing fibers, but reproducibly imaging and evaluating many individual fibers.
Molecular methods are scientifically valuable. For fast, robust and scalable textile testing, however, they remain limited — especially for processed, dyed or blended fibers.