All of our garments are made from Finnsheep wool, produced in conjunction with our responsible partners. Similar in softness to Merino, the fiber's overlapping scales point inward making the yarn particularly soft, and in our opinion, there is no finer wool in the world!
Our yarns are spun on our home turf in Finland in the few remaining spinning mills as well as hand-dyed here at our farm. The delicate process preserves the wool’s natural grease, lanolin, which makes our products naturally water and dirt resistant.
Despite being a high-quality material, more than 60% of Finnish wool is currently burned as waste due to the low market value of untapped business opportunities. We aim to change this by putting the wool into use and paying the sheep farms a fair price for their work. By doing this we are setting a new price standard and working to make the domestic wool market more lucrative. For us, this is a matter of reviving the Finnish wool industry and guaranteeing the traceability of our yarns. We are here to change the game.
The wool is washed and spun in the few spins left in Finland. Our main partner is Pirtin Kehräämi. We want the spinning industry to survive in Finland and start thriving again. It is a prerequisite for the wider exploitation of this fine domestic raw material. We are the wooden economy "game changer."
All of our yarns are hand-dyed here at Myssy Headquarters. It’s a slow and laborious process that results in particularly soft yarn and exceptionally vibrant colors. While the industrial dyeing process easily kills the natural liveliness of the yarn, our use of low-acid colors and citric acid keeps the colors bright. This thoughtful process plays a major role in the uniqueness of our products.
In order to guarantee the organic status of our products, traceability and transparency of our wool production are important steps in the process. . Our wool is purchased directly from EU Certified Organic farms monitored by Finnish officials. These farms include our long-term partner Rintala farm from Pöytyä, Bovik farm, Isäntärenki farm, Jokela farm, Jylhä farm, Kero farm, Mikkola farm, Noittaa farm, Paavila farm, Polso farm, Ranta-Niemelä farm, Rauhala farm, Sipilä farm, Tiensuu farm and Tolvila Estate.
While our small-scale production volumes do not currently meet the need for international certification, all of our processes fill GOTS certification requirements and our spinning mill uses a maximum of 5% of conventional Finnsheep wool in the Myssyfarmi yarn production. No toxic processing inputs or other harmful chemicals are used in the production, storage, or handling of Myssyfarmi yarns.
Pirtti relies solely on ecological energy resources such as wind power electricity and geothermal heating for its processes. Wastewaters are properly treated by Mikkeli sewage treatment plant.
Lanolin is the natural grease that keeps wool soft, skin friendly and naturally water and dirt resistant. It is often chemically separated and sold to the cosmetic industry in normal wool to yarn production We work to preserve these natural properties through the production process by handling and washing our wool very gently. Whereas raw wool contains about 20% of lanolin in its weight, our yarns contain it about 5%.
Finnsheep is a Finnish landrace by its origin and Finland still has the most extensive genetic Finnsheep population in the world. We find it interesting that Finnsheep are closer to the original wild sheep than most sheep races of today!
Finnsheeps are known for their incredibly soft wool that is light in weight yet dense. These sheep have an exceptionally wide color spectrum: white, brown and black wool can be mixed, making seven great natural colors for our Myssys.
The sheep are sheared twice a year as is required by law and keeping with the well-being standards of the farms.
More about Finnsheep: