Home isn’t just where the heart is, it’s also where we collectively spend over $100 billion dollars on furnishings a year. We want our homes to be magical spaces where our families can live and grow but, the truth is, many of the items in them are made with non-renewable petrochemicals, are unfit to withstand the wear and tear of basic day-to-day living, and end up in landfill.

That’s why we’re obsessed with replacing synthetic fibres in the home with sheepskin. Sheepskin is called the wonder fibre by scientists because of its seemingly endless beneficial qualities (more on that later) and is currently largely going to waste. In New Zealand alone, of the 18 million pelts produced each year, 30-50% end up in landfill.

While they naturally decompose and provide micronutrients to the soil, we also want to honour the animal by making full use of the resource and extending its useful life by turning it into deliciously soft, fire-resistant, stain-resistant, long-lasting products for your home.

Synthetic cushions, bean bags, rugs, and furniture require a lot of energy to make and are often made from petrochemicals.

Plastic, for example, is made from cellulose, coal, natural gas and crude oil, resources that are finite and take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose. Even as they do break down, they never fully disappear, the pieces just get smaller, infiltrating animals, humans and waterways. 

All too often, to compete on price, synthetic products are poorly designed and before long are thrown away after they either break or don’t work as intended.

Sheepskin has been perfectly designed by nature to keep a sheep healthy through the extreme conditions they encounter (such as severe cold/snow, hot summers, droughts, torrential rain, or infection). All we do at Wilson & Dorset is add some intelligent design to turn sheepskin into products for your home that you can use for a lifetime. At the end of your product’s useful life, you can dig a hole and bury it in the ground, and it will decompose and deliver helpful nutrients back to the soil within six months.

• Sheepskins are naturally antimicrobial and hypoallergenic. That’s because the fibres contain lanolin, a naturally occurring wax that is both antibacterial and antifungal. It keeps itself clean and is safe to live on, its truly a magical fibre.

• A tanned sheepskin is resistant to short-term exposure to fire with temperatures up to 200°C. This means if you take a lighter, turn it on and hold it against a sheepskin, the sheepskin will start to shrink and curl but won’t catch fire or continue to burn. This makes it safe around fireplaces and outdoor fires as well as a much better alternative to synthetics, which melt under high heat and give off toxic fumes. 

• Hydrophobic: Eat, drink and be merry on your sheepskin product. Naturally occurring lanolin on the fibre creates a protective barrier, preventing water from penetrating deep into the fibres. It resists soiling and releases dirt easily, making it naturally dirt-repellent. If you do spill something on your sheepskin product, it usually only requires a gentle blot. 

• Did you know that wool is stronger than steel, gram for gram? It’s the only unprocessed fibre that you can bend more than 20,000 times and still have it maintain its shape without ripping or breaking, which means you don’t need to be precious with your sheepskin product. Nature has designed sheepskin to be incredibly hard wearing so, when treated with basic care, our products will endure a lifetime of partying and family wear and tear. 

• We can wax on about the practical benefits of sheepskin all day, but generally what converts our community to choosing a piece of sheepskin is the feeling they get when they touch, sit, walk or lie on it. Sheepskin has been enjoyed by humans for over 100,000 years.