User:Ernidbee/CashLlama

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CashLlama is an eco-textile that comes from llamas of the Bolivian highlands. It is being used in luxury textile design and home accessories around the world. (Aymara, www.aymara.dk is a Danish company creating fashion textiles out of CashLlama, and Cascada, www.cascada.com.au is using CashLlama for home accessories such as wraps, throws and blankets) Llamas have two coats: the undercoat is fine and downy, giving protection from the cold, and the outer layer of guard hair allows moisture and debris to bed shed. Only the hair from the llamas’ soft undercoat is used, as the outer coat it too coarse and is instead used in making floor hangings, rugs and ropes. This fleece then undergoes a patented dehairing process to refine and clean the fibres, then prepare them for use in weaving or spinning. (www.cashllama.com/dehairing.html and www.altifibers.com). The fine coat can be as low as 20 microns. The entire process strives to be organic and environmentally friendly, and is currently undergoing organic certification (www.cashllama.com/do-we-need-organic.html). Pesticides are not used on the farmland of the llamas, and the cleaning of the llama fleece is done without use of chemicals. The end product is a textile that is warm, light, soft, hypoallergenic and anti-inflammable.

Benefits of using llamas

Llamas are used for a multitude of reasons in Bolivia, aside from their fibres: for their meat, as pack animals, beasts of burden, their droppings are used as fertiliser, and sometimes they are used to guard flocks of sheep. Their grazing habits and digestive system make efficient use of native forages, and their padded feet keep soil disturbance to a minimum, thereby reducing erosion and the need for fertilisers. Llama fibres are hollow, which gives them insulation qualities to keep the animals cool during the day and warm during the night. The plains of Bolivia have temperatures ranging from -58°c at night to 24°c during the day. These hollow fibres also ensure the light weight of CashLlama. The uniform coloration and fineness, as well as the absence of visible hairs in llama fleeces are ideally suited for textile production (http://www.conopa.org/camelidos/llamas_eng.php) Llama fibres naturally come in a range of 17 different colours.