Your sweater, specifically
How to Verify Your Cashmere Is Real
This page is about one garment: yours. What the words on our label mean, what the certificate can and cannot establish, and two tests you can run at home on a sweater already in your hands. If your question is the broader one — how to spot fake cashmere on any listing, from any brand — that is a different question and our parent workshop has written the better answer: how to check real cashmere.
What the three words on our label mean
- Fibre diameter
- 12–16 micron
- Grade
- A
- Breed
- Chyangra
- Grade B or C band
- not published
Three claims travel with every sweater we sell. Here is what each one is, and — more usefully — what each one is not.
100% cashmere
A composition claim: no wool, no acrylic, no nylon core. It is the only one of the three you can test yourself, and the burn and rub tests below are how. Everything else on the label is a claim about the fibre before it became a sweater, which no test performed on the finished garment can confirm.
Grade A
A trade convention describing fineness and staple length, not a legal standard. No government body issues a cashmere grade and there is no registry to check one against. It is a supplier's own grading, passed down the chain — ours from the workshop's sourcing in Mustang, Manang and Dolpo. That does not make it meaningless, but it makes it a description rather than a certification, and any brand implying otherwise is overselling a piece of trade shorthand. The full picture of how grading works is on the parent's cashmere grades and micron guide.
12–16 micron
Micron is the diameter of one fibre. Finer fibre feels softer, and that is the entire reason cashmere costs what it does. This is a measured number, which is why we publish it. Two things it does not do: it says nothing about how much cashmere is in the garment, and it does not predict pilling. Pilling is governed by staple length — how long each fibre is — and finer fibre is often shorter fibre, so the two properties pull against each other. Does Cashmere Pill? works through that in full. We do not currently publish our staple length; it is to be confirmed from the workshop.
Chyangra
The Nepali cashmere goat. The fibre is the soft undercoat, combed out rather than sheared, from herds in Mustang, Manang and Dolpo above 3,000 m — altitude is the reason the undercoat is fine in the first place. Provenance of this kind is not verifiable from a garment in your hands by any test, ours or anyone else's. What can be verified is who made the sweater, which is the point of the artisans page, and where it was made, which is Himalayan cashmere sweaters, made in Pokhara.
What the certificate does and does not prove
Our product pages say certification is available on request, and it is. Two details we are not going to describe approximately:
| Issuing body | To be confirmed from the workshop |
|---|---|
| What it certifies | To be confirmed from the workshop |
What is already clear is the shape of the limit. A fibre certificate reports on a tested sample. At best it can state the composition of the yarn that was submitted. It cannot establish the altitude a goat grazed at, it cannot identify a herd, and — the part nobody mentions — it cannot establish that the sweater in your parcel came from the lot that was tested. A certificate is a supplier document. It is worth having. It is not the consumer guarantee it is usually presented as, and the two tests below will tell you more about your own garment than any PDF will.
The burn test, on a sweater you already own
The most decisive test available to you, and the only one that gives a clear yes-or-no. It destroys what it tests, so it is for a garment already in your possession — not something to attempt in a shop.
Before you start. Work at a sink or over a ceramic dish. Use tweezers, never your fingers. Take the fibres from the inside seam allowance or another hidden inner surface — never from the visible face of the knit, and never from a cuff or hem you will later see. Four or five fibres is enough. Keep loose fabric, hair and sleeves well away from the flame.
Animal fibre — what yours should do
- Burns slowly and reluctantly, with a small flame
- Self-extinguishes the moment you take the flame away
- Smells of burnt hair or singed feathers
- Leaves a brittle black ash that crumbles to powder between your fingers
Acrylic, polyester or nylon
- Melts rather than burns, shrinking away from the flame
- Keeps going, or drips, after the flame is removed
- Smells acrid and chemical — plastic, not hair
- Leaves a hard shiny bead you cannot crush
A blend does both at once: a hair smell with small melted beads left behind in the ash. That is the result worth acting on.
The limit, stated plainly. The burn test distinguishes animal fibre from synthetic. It does not distinguish cashmere from merino, lambswool, yak or any other animal hair — all of them burn slowly, self-extinguish, smell of burnt hair and leave the same ash. So the test can rule out an acrylic blend sold as cashmere. It cannot rule out wool sold as cashmere. Anyone telling you a match proves your sweater is cashmere is overstating what the test does.
The rub test, and what it cannot tell you
Faster, destroys nothing, and does most of the same job. Take a section of the body panel and rub it briskly between your palms for about ten seconds.
- Cashmere: a small amount of short fibre lifts and the surface goes very slightly hazy. No static crackle. Nothing clings to your palm.
- Synthetic or synthetic-heavy blend: static builds noticeably, fibres cling to your hand and stand up, and the surface balls almost immediately into small hard pills that feel tacky rather than soft.
Two limits. First, the same one as the burn test: this reads fibre class, not species, and certainly not grade. Second — and this is the one that generates unnecessary worry — a little loosened fuzz on a new cashmere sweater is normal and expected. Short surface fibres working free is what cashmere does for the first two or three wears. It is not evidence of a fake. The difference is in the character of what forms: soft fuzz that combs away, versus hard tacky balls that do not. Does Cashmere Pill? is the longer answer.
What our construction looks like up close
Turn the sweater inside out and look at the shoulder, the sides and the underarm. You will find joined seams, because the garment is made as separate knitted panels and then assembled — front, back, sleeves and neckline brought together into one garment. In our workshop that assembly is done on a linking machine, by a named person: Rina Gurung, in the linking section, about 14 garments a month. Those seams are not a fault and not a shortcut; they are how a shaped knitted garment is built.
On the face of the fabric, look for an even, matte surface with a faint halo of short fibre standing off it. Synthetic-heavy blends read shinier and feel cooler to the hand, because the fibre reflects light more evenly and holds less air. And expect the colour to vary a little between orders: dyeing is done in small lots, so the same colour name a year apart may not be an exact match. That is a property of small-batch dyeing, not a counterfeit signal.
One thing you will not be able to settle by looking, and neither can we yet:
| Construction term | Knitted in the Pokhara workshop, in the Knitting and Production department, then linked, washed, mended and checked. Not woven — the handloom section makes the shawls and blankets, not these |
|---|---|
| Ply, gauge and weight (GSM) | To be confirmed from the workshop |
| Staple length | To be confirmed from the workshop |
Both of those construction descriptions are the workshop's own words, and they do not agree. We have asked Pokhara which is correct for these three garments rather than picking the one that sounds better. The artisans who make your sweater sets out the four stations and who works each of them.
What we do not claim
Authenticity pages are usually a list of things a brand is sure about. This part is the opposite, and it is the more useful half.
- No NPIA certification. We hold none and never claimed one. That phrase came from a competitor's marketplace listing, not from Pokhara. If you find it attached to our sweaters anywhere, it is wrong.
- No hand-linked seams. The panels are joined on a linking machine, which we have said above. The phrase is common at this price and we cannot use it.
- Not described as hand-knitted. See the construction table above. The term is unconfirmed; it will not be resolved in the flattering direction just because that would sell better.
- No star rating. There is no aggregate rating on this site, in the page markup or anywhere else, because the review counts on these three sweaters are 5, 5 and 4 and there is no system here yet that stores a submitted review. A rating we cannot substantiate is exactly the kind of thing this page exists to be sceptical about.
- No claim that a test proves provenance. Nothing you can do at your kitchen sink establishes altitude, herd or country. Anyone selling you a home test that does is selling you something else.
If you think something is wrong
If the burn test gives you melted beads, if the fabric builds static and pills into hard balls in the first week, or if anything about the garment does not match what is written here, tell us. The workshop is a small operation in Damside-17, Pokhara, and it is reachable — contact details are here. If the problem is fit rather than fibre, which is statistically far more likely, the Men's Cashmere Sweater Size Guide & Fit and Returns & Exchanges are the two pages you want.
The broader question, answered elsewhere
Everything above is scoped to a sweater from this workshop. If you are trying to judge a listing from a brand you do not know, or want the general treatment of grading, micron and how the category gets adulterated, our parent has spent longer on it than we have and ranks for it accordingly: how to check real cashmere and cashmere grades and micron. One owner per question; we are not going to write a worse version of a page that already exists.
Common questions
How can I verify the cashmere sweater I bought from you is real?
Two tests you can run at home. The burn test on four or five fibres taken from an inside seam allowance will tell you whether the fibre is animal or synthetic: animal fibre self-extinguishes, smells of burnt hair and crumbles to a brittle ash, while acrylic and polyester melt, smell chemical and leave a hard bead. The rub test — ten seconds briskly between your palms — will tell you the same thing faster and without destroying anything: synthetic builds static and balls into hard tacky pills immediately. Neither test can tell cashmere apart from merino or yak, because all animal hair behaves the same way.
What does Grade A cashmere actually mean?
It is a trade convention describing fibre fineness and length, not a legal standard. No government body issues it and there is no registry to check a Grade A claim against — it is the supplier's own grading, passed along. Ours comes from the workshop's sourcing in Mustang, Manang and Dolpo. Treat it as a description of intent rather than as a certification.
What does 12–16 micron mean?
Micron is the diameter of a single fibre. Finer fibre feels softer, so a low micron figure is what makes cashmere feel like cashmere. It is a measured number and we publish it. What it does not tell you is whether the sweater will pill — that is governed by staple length, which is how long each fibre is, and which we do not currently publish.
Does the burn test prove my sweater is cashmere?
No. It proves the fibre is animal rather than synthetic, which is a different and narrower claim. Cashmere, merino, lambswool and yak all burn slowly, self-extinguish, smell of burnt hair and leave the same brittle ash. The burn test can rule out an acrylic blend. It cannot rule out wool sold as cashmere.
Do you provide a certificate of authenticity?
Certification is available on request. We are not yet stating on this site who issues it or exactly what it covers, because we have not confirmed those details with the workshop — they are marked unconfirmed rather than described approximately. What is settled is what it could never prove: a fibre certificate can state the composition of a tested sample, but not the altitude a goat grazed at, not the herd, and not that your specific garment came from the tested lot.
Is the sweater NPIA-certified?
No. We hold no NPIA certification and have never claimed one. The phrase appeared on a competitor's marketplace listing and does not belong to this product. If you see it attached to our sweaters anywhere, it is wrong.