Camel hair is, variously, the hair

Hair

Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....

 of a camel

Camel

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

; a type of cloth made from camel hair; or a substitute for authentic camel hair; and is classified as a specialty hair fibre. When woven

Weaving

Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...

 into haircloth

Haircloth

Haircloth is a stiff, unsupple fabric typically made from horsehair and/or from the wooly hair of a camel. Although horsehair generally refers to the hair of a horse's mane or tail, haircloth itself is sometimes called horsehair...

, using the outer protective fur called guard hair, camel hair is coarse and inflexible. However, other varieties of camel hair cloth—especially those that blend camel hair with wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

— or from the pure under coat are soft and plush. Pure camel hair, frequently used for coats, is gathered when camels molt in warmer seasons. This undercoat is very soft, and is separated from the dense, coarse guard hair for cloth use.

Source and Geographic Origin

Camel hair is collected from the two-humped Bactrian camel

Bactrian camel

The Bactrian camel is a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of central Asia. It is presently restricted in the wild to remote regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang. A small number of wild Bactrian camels still roam the Mangystau Province of southwest...

, found from Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 east to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and north to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. Significant supplier countries of camel hair are: Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Gathering process

A camel can produce around 5 pounds of hair a year. The specialty animal fibre is collected by a number of methods including combing

Combing

Combing is a method for preparing carded fibre for spinning. It separates out the short fibres by means of a rotating ring of steel pins. The fibres in the 'top' it produces, have been straightened and lie parallel to each other...

, shearing

Sheep shearing

Sheep shearing, shearing or clipping is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a shearer. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year...

, and collecting the hair shed naturally during the moulting season. During the moulting season the hair falls off first from the neck, then the mane and lastly the body hair. The moulting season occurs in late spring and is a process that takes six to eight weeks.

Production

There are five primary steps to the production of camel hair; collection, sorting, dehairing, spinning, and weaving or knitting. After collecting the hair either through shearing or collecting during the moulting season the hair goes through a sorting method. In this process the coarse hair is separated from the fine, soft hairs. The fibres are then washed to remove any dirt or debris obtained from the collection process. The sorted and washed hair is then dehaired. This process removes the coarse hair and any dandruff or vegetable matter before it is sent to be spun into yarn

Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

 and used for either weaving

Weaving

Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...

 or knitting

Knitting

Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...

.

Natural Qualities

The color of camel is primarily golden tan with a variance of red to light brown tones. Camel's hair is also a fibre that supplies warmth without added weight. The hair contains thermostatic properties which can protect and insulate the camel from the extreme cold conditions as well as keeping them cool in the desert. The same properties and characteristics are transferred when making fabrics woven from camel hair.

Common End Uses of Camel Hair

The fine fur of the camel hair are often blended with fine wool to create fabrics for men's and women's coats, jackets and blazers, skirts, hosiery, sweaters, gloves, scarves, mufflers, and caps and robes. The long coarser hair removed in the dehairing process is also used which can be made into carpet backing as well as waterproof coats that are very warm for colder climates.

Textile Analysis

Although most camel hair is left as its natural tones, the hair can be dyed in a multiple range of colors and accepts the dye equally compared to that of wool fibres. The best blends of camel hair in textiles are pure camel hair or blended with wool only. It is also commonly blended with nylon to make hosiery and other knitted products. Products containing camel hair should be dry cleaned or handwashed.

Natural paintbrush bristles are derived either from the hairs of horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s, squirrel

Squirrel

Squirrels belong to a large family of small or medium-sized rodents called the Sciuridae. The family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots , flying squirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa and have been introduced to Australia...

s, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, sheep, bear

Bear

Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...

s, sable

Sable

The sable is a species of marten which inhabits forest environments, primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range in the wild originally extended through European Russia to Poland and Scandinavia...

s, hog

Hog

-Animals:Other than the Domestic pig, Sus scrofa or Sus scrofa domestica, there are other species commonly called hogs, including:*The Red river hog*The Giant forest hog-Other:* The Hogs, the offensive line of the NFL's Washington Redskins....

s, or some combination of these. As a result, the texture, absorbency, and other properties of "camel hair" brushes vary markedly. Wooly camel hair is unsuitable for brush bristles.