Some fake cashmere is actually rat fur. I repeat: the so-soft cashmere that is now touching your very skin may have once been worn by a rat. Again: You might be wearing a rat’s old coat.
Italian police seized over a million fake cashmere garments made at Chinese-run firms in Rome and distributed in Florence that were found to contain acrylic, viscose, and oh, some rat fur. An Italian court “cautioned” 14 Chinese-born people for fraud, which seems like a slap on the wrist considering that some of the rat-fur cashmere was used to make pashminas that touched people’s faces.
So you should burn that pashmina that your aunt bought you in Florence that she swears is “real Italian.”
[BBC]