Check both labels
Enzymes and Protein Fibers
A published review of wool processing states that protease enzymes degrade proteins and have been applied deliberately to wool fiber, in one case with substantial fiber damage. The garment care label decides whether an enzyme product goes near it.
One side
Enzyme boosters and enzyme detergents
Two boosters on this site name enzymes as the working part, and one detergent sheet listing names three stain-fighting enzymes. Enzymes are the thing that made modern detergent good at food, grass and body soil, and the listings are right to be proud of them.
In the matrix asEnzyme boosters. Powders and concentrates whose listings name enzymes as the working part, sold to be added to a load alongside detergent.
Other side
Protein fibers
Wool and silk. University of Georgia Extension classes both as fibers of animal origin. The fiber is protein, and that is not a fact about how it was made. It is a description of what it currently is, in the drum, in this load.
What the published sources say
A peer-reviewed review of wool finishing describes protease enzymes as able to degrade proteins, and describes their deliberate use on wool to alter the scales of the fiber; it also records a combined treatment that achieved its goal but not without substantial fiber damage. That research is about industrial processing rather than about a Tuesday evening wash, and this site will not pretend the distance between those two is nothing. What it does establish is the direction of the relationship. The enzyme class that works on protein soil works on the same kind of material the fiber itself is made of. That is why an enzyme product and a wool care label have to be read together rather than one at a time.
Why this keeps happening
Enzymes are invisible and they are the good news on the box. A booster that promises to lift what detergent alone missed sounds like exactly the thing to reach for when a load has one difficult item in it, and the one difficult item is very often the wool. There is also a naming problem. Plenty of detergents contain enzymes without the word appearing anywhere a shopper looks, so a household can be using them daily without ever having made a decision about it.
What to do instead
- Check the garment care label while the load is being built, not after the booster is already in.
- Where a product names enzymes, follow its directions on which fabrics it is for, and treat anything unnamed as outside its scope.
- Wash the protein items separately from the load you want the booster in, so that one decision does not have to cover both.
- If the care label and the product label disagree, the care label wins.
Where this pairing shows up elsewhere on the site
Fibers
The consequence, and where it is published
A published review of wool processing states that protease enzymes degrade proteins and have been applied deliberately to wool fiber, in one case with substantial fiber damage. The garment care label decides whether an enzyme product goes near it.
This site publishes no doses, no dilutions, no temperatures and no soak times, and it does not compose mixtures of any kind. Where a product is involved, its own manufacturer label governs. Where a garment is involved, the care label governs.