Is angora wool? Mohair, alpaca and angora rabbit hair under US label law

Angora is wool only if it comes from a goat. Under the US Wool Products Labeling Act, the hair of the Angora goat counts as wool, while the hair of the angora rabbit is a fur fiber and has to be labeled that way. The word on a sweater tag can therefore cover two very different animals and two different legal categories.

What the law calls wool

The definition sits in 15 U.S.C. 68(b), part of the Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939, approved on October 14, 1940. Wool, it says, is "the fiber from the fleece of the sheep or lamb or hair of the Angora or Cashmere goat." It adds that wool "may include the so-called specialty fibers from the hair of the camel, alpaca, llama, and vicuna," as long as the fiber has never been reclaimed from any woven or felted wool product.

Read that slowly. Sheep wool is the baseline. Two goats are named outright. Four other animals can be included as specialty fibers. Anything outside that list is not wool for label purposes, however soft or expensive it is.

The FTC repeats the list in its guidance for businesses, "Threading Your Way Through the Labeling Requirements Under the Textile and Wool Acts," dated July 2014 with later edits in October 2020 and January 2025. There, wool includes the hair of the Angora goat, Cashmere goat, camel, alpaca, llama or vicuna.

Angora goat versus angora rabbit

This is where shoppers get confused. The Angora goat produces the fiber sold as mohair, and mohair is one of the specialty fiber names the FTC accepts on a label, alongside cashmere, camel, alpaca, llama and vicuna. Under the Act's definition, it is wool.

The angora rabbit is different. The FTC's guidance treats angora rabbit hair as a fur fiber. Its example label shows how that reads: 60% Wool, 30% Fur Fiber, 10% Angora Rabbit Hair. The same garment, in other words, can contain wool and angora, and the tag will keep the two separate.

The term fur fiber may be used to describe the hair or fur fiber, or mixtures, of animals other than those named in the wool definition. The FTC adds that a maker may use the name of the animal if its hair or fur fiber comprises more than 5% of the fiber weight. Below that, the tag falls back to the generic term.

Cashmere has a narrower test

Cashmere has its own definition in the FTC guidance. The fiber must consist of the fine, dehaired undercoat fibers produced by a Cashmere goat (capra hircus laniger). If fibers from a Cashmere goat do not meet that definition, the FTC says the label should identify them as wool, not as cashmere.

That makes cashmere the strictest of the luxury names. A coarse goat fiber is still goat hair and still wool in the legal sense, but it does not get the cashmere label. For the micron and percentage details, see our guide to fiber content label rules, and for the fiber itself, our explainer on what cashmere is.

What about alpaca, camel hair and the rest

Alpaca, llama, camel and vicuna appear in both the statute and the guidance. They may be called wool, and they may also be identified by their specialty names. The FTC's guidance lists the specialty names as mohair, cashmere, camel, alpaca, llama and vicuna.

What the rules do not do is rank them. Nothing in the definition says alpaca is finer than sheep wool, or that camel hair is warmer. The law sorts fibers into labeling categories. Quality is a different question, and one a tag cannot settle.

Where recycled and virgin claims fit

The Act also covers recycled wool, a definition added in 1980. It describes fiber made from wool that was woven or felted into a product and returned to fibrous form, whether or not a consumer used it. We cover that rule in our piece on recycled wool, and the related virgin and new claims in our explainer on what virgin wool means.

Fiber trademarks matter too. The FTC says a fiber trademark may be used on a content label as long as it appears next to the generic fiber name. The rules for wool define a fiber trademark as a word used to identify a particular fiber and distinguish it from others of the same generic class. A brand name on a tag does not replace the legal fiber name.

How to read an animal fiber tag

• Find the content line. It lists every fiber in descending order of weight with percentages. The marketing word on the front matters less.
• Look for fur fiber. If you see it, the piece contains hair or fur that is not on the wool list.
• Check the animal name. An animal is named only above the 5% line.
• Treat the specialty name as a category. Cashmere is a defined term, and so is mohair.

Our take

Treat angora on a tag as a question, not an answer. The goat version is wool in law and the rabbit version is not, and the content label tells you which. Buy on the percentages and the construction. Skip the adjectives. We would also watch the 5% line, because it decides whether a small amount of a prized fiber gets a name or an anonymous label.