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Lanolin is a crucial ingredient if you’re using wool covers since they need to be lanolized at least every couple of weeks to stay water-resistant and not start to smell (link to a more in-depth post about smelly wool covers).
But how do you choose the right one to do the job properly?
For most people, pure solid lanolin will work best to lanolize wool covers. Other popular choices are pre-prepared lanolin emulsions and lanolin sprays.
Read on to learn about the most popular lanolin brands among the parents who took the poll. I’ll also discuss the differences between the different forms of lanolin and how to know which one you should choose for lanolizing your wool covers. I’ll also inform you about any other ingredients you need to lanolize wool effectively.
What Brands Do Real Lanolin Users Recommend?
As a result of a Facebook poll where 20 parents answered which lanolin brand they recommend, the top 3 brands were Now Solutions (affiliate link to Amazon), Sloomb, and Yooki Wool.
Six out of 20 users (30%) recommended Now Solutions, four (20%) of them chose the brand Sloomb, and three (15%) of them voted for Yooki Wool.
Other recommended brands were Lansinoh nipple cream (affiliate link to Amazon) and Mystic Moon Handmade with two users each (10%), and Bumby Wool Solutions, The Blythe Life, and Wild Coconut Wear with one user (5%) for each of the three brands.
Interestingly, nearly all (19 out of 20 users) recommended brands of pure solid lanolin, except for one that recommended emulsifying cubes of the company Bumby Wool Solutions.
The results lead me to conclude that although parents usually think wool care is too complicated before they try it out for themselves, lanolizing wool covers isn’t nearly as hard, even when you have to prepare your own lanolin emulsion by using the pure solid lanolin.
How to Decide between Different Brands of Lanolin
Most of the above brands offer pure solid lanolin. So if the lanolin inside the packaging is all the same, how do you decide which one to choose?
Depending on your experience with lanolizing wool until now, you’ll want to consider different packaging sizes.
If you’re lanolizing wool covers for the first time and you’re not even sure if wool is for you, I recommend buying a smaller packaging size of lanolin. Lansinoh nipple cream (affiliate link to Amazon) would be an excellent choice because it is only 1.41 Ounces (40 grams).
You might already have it at home if you used this lanolin to protect your skin during breastfeeding. Because it’s being sold in such small packages, the price-to-quantity ratio is higher than with bigger packaging. Still, unless you know someone will buy or accept the used lanolin as a gift, it’s probably best to buy a smaller packaging first.
If you’ve lanolized wool before and you know you’ll continue using wool, buying larger packaging will make the most sense, especially if you use wool covers during the day and night. In this case, you’ll be lanolizing wool covers quite frequently, about once or twice per month.
As evident from the poll, most users recommended the brand Now Solutions (affiliate link to Amazon), which contains 7 Fl Oz (207 milliliters) of lanolin.
The Sloomb (link to the store) brand offers multiple packaging sizes of lanolin, but the bigger ones will be the most efficient in terms of price-to-quantity ratio.
If you’re using wool covers, purchase the larger packaging sizes – they will last you a while, they’ll be the most cost-efficient, and they will use the least amount of packaging for the content inside.
How to Decide between Different Forms of Lanolin
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, lanolin comes in many different forms, such as pure solid lanolin, pre-prepared lanolin emulsion, and lanolin spray.
How do you decide which one to buy?
If you don’t mind preparing a lanolin emulsion by yourself, choose pure solid lanolin. The whole process will remind you of a simple science project.
You’ll be able to use it for your skin if you want since lanolin is widely used in the cosmetic industry as an emollient that helps your skin retain moisture.
If you know you’ll only need lanolin to lanolize wool and want the foolproof solution to lanolizing, you can buy a pre-prepared lanolin emulsion. After my initial failure to lanolize wool with pure solid lanolin, I purchased a lanolin emulsion, and it worked great. There’s very little you could do wrong and not get the expected result.
Lanolin sprays (link to Etsy store) are an excellent solution when you don’t have the time for washing and lanolizing wool covers but you’re starting to notice smells which usually means that lanolin is beginning to wear off your wool covers. Lanolin sprays are a temporary solution until you find time to wash and lanolize your wool covers properly.
What Else You Need to Lanolize Wool Covers Successfully
Lanolin, on its own, won’t be enough to lanolize your wool covers effectively.
Since lanolin is a wax containing many different types of fats, it isn’t water-soluble. That is why you must create an emulsion first to be sure all the lanolin is properly emulsified so your wool covers will be lanolized evenly.
Not emulsifying lanolin entirely before lanolizing the covers is a common beginner mistake (that I also made), so don’t skip this post where I talk about how to prevent lanolin spots on your wool covers after lanolizing them.
So what additional items will you need if you’re lanolizing with pure solid lanolin?
You’ll need a few drops of an emulsifier (for example, baby shampoo or wool detergent) or emulsifying cubes (link to store). Either of the two will help emulsify lanolin, so you’ll end up with that homogenous-looking milky emulsion you need.
If you choose a pre-prepared lanolin emulsion, you don’t need to add any additional emulsifiers.
Nothing else is needed in terms of special ingredients; you only need to find a container where you’ll lanolize the covers. The container can be a mason jar, a kitchen pot, or something else. I usually use a kitchen pot and place a plate on top to ensure the covers are entirely submerged in the lanolin bath.
I created a comprehensive step-by-step guide to lanolizing wool covers in this post, so check it out!
