Welcome to Pashmina International. We stock many designs of genuine pashmina online; Cashmere and Silk scarves, stoles shawls and wraps.

Our products are all hand chosen to ensure quality, and so that we can guarantee your satisfaction. We offer free international shipping on every order.

How to tell a real pashmina from a fake

Many people often complain that some pashminas are cheaper than the others. What gives?

Difference in quality

The difference between the cheap pashmina and the best quality pashmina lies in the quality of the fibers from the Capra Hircus goat where the pashmina wool comes from. The quality pashmina wool is taken from the underbelly of the goat, whereas often the wool of the cheap pashmina is culled from the coarser, rougher parts of the goat, like the goat’s back. The wool there is more widely available so unfortunately, many of the pashminas sold today on the internet are of this variety. It’s cheap yes, but the quality can be rather poor unless you find a good supplier.

Wool pashminas

Customers from around the world are constantly being offered by manufacturers offering “quality pashmina.?India is especially a great source of fake pashminas, which don’t even contain any shred of pashmina wool. While they’re made of wool, manufacturers use softeners to fake the appearance and pass it off as genuine pashmina. The Capra Hircus goats are native to the freezing mountain regions of the Himalayas, so it’s quite a stretch for the imagination how Indian pashmina makers can claim they make authentic pashmina shawls.

Origin of pashmina

Of course it’s not to say that pashmina shawls made from places other than the Himalayas are bad, but they’re just not the real deal. It also doesn’t mean that all shawls hand-woven from the Himalayas (including Nepal, Tibet, and China) are also the genuine article. Some pashminas are of the cheaper variety so they are not as soft and they tend to itch slightly around the neck area. They also don’t provide as much warmth and protection. Additionally, they may also wrinkle more after some use. The scarves may also bobble and lose some of their elegant appeal, unless you care properly for them. The best quality pashminas are known to withstand all the elements such as the wind, the cold and even the rain.

Very cheap synthetics

Some cheaper pashminas are made from acrylics, or from the regular cotton and wool. Over the years, the word pashmina has come to acquire a rather generic meaning which encompasses even the cheap quality pashminas, or the pashminas woven from a blend of inauthentic pashmina wool and silk.

Dyes and manufacture

So what are the other qualities or the factors that separate a quality pashmina from the fake ones aside from the wool? The main factors are the specific fabric blend and the looming method. Another factor is the dye. The authentic pashminas use only natural dyes such as metal and azo-free dyes. Some others use Swiss dyes. You can find some cheap pashminas at bargain sites, and sites that list cheap pashminas without a bold quality statement. Some of these so-called pashminas aren't even very cheap at all!

Why would anyone want to buy lower quality pashminas? Well, the faux or fake pashminas do look almost the same as the real pashminas and they do cost much less. They can also be washed using the machine, as opposed to pashminas which require more care. Perhaps because they’re cheap, these faux pashminas are also used as substitutes for blankets, covers, etc. They are also good for daily use at the office, in the outdoors or even just to keep warm at home. Just in case they snag or in case the colors fade then people can just buy another cheap pashmina to replace it.

Still, as they say, nothing beats the real deal. Buy one of our pashminas and see for yourself. Even our cheapest pashminas use good quality cashmere goat wool, and genuine silk, and are both hardwearing and extremely comfortable.

See the rest of our wide range of pashmina scarves and read about our quality via our homepage.