Don't get any weird ideas on this, my love of sheep isn't even skin deep, completely superficial. It's all about the wool, the long, soft fibered merino wool that can be found in better socks today. However, all wool, especially merino wool, is not created equally. There is no standard for what is considered true merino wool. It can mean anything from where the wool is from, from which type of sheep it is shorn or even can refer to an item simply made of 100% wool using specially worsted yarn.
Although I would take a wool sock over any other fiber year round, I do have my favorite sock manufacturers. Just as merino varies so do the socks made from said wool. Finding the best socks around has been a pet quest of mine for about 15 years now. In the beginning a good friend talked me into wearing this goofy
little wool running sock from Wigwam. I was hooked, although the
elastic wore out quick and the socks yellowed, I loved those
things to death. A few years and a few dozen pair
later, Wigwam dropped
that sock from their lineup. I was crushed. Not long after I made my
first buying trip to the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City and
found this great little booth, outside in a tent, for a company that only made merino wool socks.
At the time this company made maybe 6 different socks. They were
different though, the socks were soft, resilient, and unique. No longer
did one have to resort to crappy, itchy, poor fitting rag wool socks. Smartwool had arrived!
At first they were a hard sell, having to take socks out of the package turn them inside out and have people really feel the socks and then guarantee that they wouldn't itch. Nowadays it's merino for the masses. Heck, you can get "merino" wool socks at Costco.
Back to my earlier point. There are big differences in merino socks out there. While Smartwool remains our top seller, continuing to offer up an endless collection of great merino wool socks, there are a few others that bear mentioning. Dahlgren socks add the ultra softness of Alpaca wool, although I have never been pleased with their durability, having pairs that have lasted as few as 3 wearings.
There are also many "me-toos" out there, that have simply knocked off Smartwool's original hiking design. I won't waste your time with those. My very favorite, on many levels, is Teko. Teko socks have the best wear, the best fit (although a few styles are a hair tight on my stumpy calves), and the best ethos of anyone in the business. Like many of it's competitors, Teko doesn't just go where the wool is priced best, they actually contract with one and one only fully sustainable organic farm in Tasmania to produce their top notch merino wool. In the growing world of premium wool socks, in my book Teko is tops.
There are, somewhere out there, true lanolin allergies which
can prevent one from wearing wool. For the rest of us though, it's time
to get our feet into a sheep's clothing, merino wool!