The main criticism cited against New Zealand wools in carpets is insufficient bulk and too much lustre. Wool from average bulk Perendale sheep with the 20% improvement in bulk spoken of earlier has proved adequate to overcome these criticisms. More bulk will command a greater premium.
A minimum length is critical with 75-100mm (3 – 4 inch) shears commanding a higher price than 50-75mm (2-3 inch) wools. An expectation with shears is that they will have good scoured wool colour values in the 1.0-2.5 Y-Z values. Poorer coloured shears will be discounted. Micron value is generally of lesser importance with some clients s preferring the coarsest/bulkiest wools available (37-39 microns) provided lustre is low. Others spinning finer-count yarns may specify shears in the 34-36 micron range and with this comes a higher price.
Compared with lower-bulk wools to which criticism is levelled, typically a minimum premium of 2.5% is being paid for Perendale wools of similar micron and colour value.
It is sometimes heard that because it is for the carpet trade everything can be thrown into the press without attention to skirting. Even if the greasy wool colour is little affected by such a practice, the presence of stained yellow skirtings will lead to an inconsistent dyed colour causing buyers only wanting the best to reject such offerings.
But more importantly within a basically very white shears scourment, stained skirtings are readily seen by the client drawing attention to the shorter length component. As a consequence, what may have been a 3-4 inch shear will need to be discounted in price to a 2-4 inch price.