Using Lanolin for Merino Clothes

Question

For our little baby's merino wool overtrousers-diapers we use Lanolin, which is absolutely recommendes by all producers of this kind of overtrousers. My question has two parts:

1. I have googled this now for a while and no outdoor producer of merino stuff (like woolpower, smartwool or others) even mention lanolin. Would there be any point not to wash my merino stuff with lanolin?

2. I have a jacket with different materials. In this case

Outside: 70% Merino Wool / 30% Polyamid - 22,5 Micron
Lining: 100% Polypropylene-Mesh

Would there be any negative effects washing this jacket with lanolin?

Maybe the breathability is affected by a lanolin impregnation but if it is just as the natur is doing it (re-fatting or re-greasing, I am not sure about the vocabular here) it should be still breathable.

Answer 1

Do you mean washing with lanolin-containing wool detergent, or just chucking in some of your lanolin you use on your baby's stuff? If the latter, I think it may be hard determining the correct amount.

I wish I could give you a more technical answer, but I can tell you many "wool detergents" on the market like Nikwax Wool Wash and Kookaburra Wash contain lanolin for the expressed purpose of "replenishing" your merino garment's lanolin. I have read some things saying wool has all or almost all lanolin removed during the process of turning it into fabric and there's no reason any "should" be there, and I have read a small amount remains and that is largely responsible for some of merino's performance attributes like stain and odor resistance and needs to be periodically replenished. I personally use Nikwax Wool Wash with all my merino stuff, they did seem to get marginally softer and sheen-ier, and I didn't notice a huge loss in breathability or whatever, but I've never been fantastic at paying attention to these sorts of things.