Fibre Testing & What it means
When you receive Alpaca Fibre from us here at Surilox you will find fibre results under the following headings.

Micron
Is the measurement of the diameter of the fibre. A micron is a millionth of a metre or, if you like, a thousandth of a millimetre. The lower the micron the finer the fibre.

Comfort Factor
Is the measurement of softness
This is generally a measure of the angle of the scales on a shaft of fibre. A comfort factor of 100% tells us that the fibres scales lie parallel to the shaft of the fibre. There will be no scratchiness or itching in this fibre.

CF is also a count of those scales or barbs. All fleece has small barbs along the shaft of the fibre. The more barbs the lower the comfort factor & the more likely wool is to scratch your skin. Sheep wool has many barbs which is why it is often uncomfortable to wear next to the skin.
Alpaca has almost no barbs.
Technically, the measurement is the percentage of fibre below 30 micron
If you are buying alpaca to spin for garments always choose a high comfort factor.

SD or Standard Deviation of Micron
The fibre tests are done on around 2000 or so fibres. There is always some variation of micron in the fibre sample. The standard deviation tells you +/- how many microns the deviation in diameter can be. eg micron 20 SD 2.1
The average diameter is 20 microns but there are some fibres with a diameter of as little as 17.9 microns and some with as much as 22.1 microns.

A micron is an incredibly small measurement & an SD of 5 or less can hardly be felt & makes really very little difference to the fibre.

CV or Coefficient of Variance
This is also known as diameter distribution. It is a measurement that tells you about the micron consistency in the fleece.
ie 18% means that there is an 18% of the fibres in the sample were more or less than the average Micron

Fibre curvature (degrees/mm)
Fibre curvature is a primary measure of the frequency of the crimp of the fibres within a Huacaya fleece and the spiral of the lock in the Suri