On our wool blend, New Zealand and High Atlas
Every Mrirt rug we weave starts with two wools on the same spindle: one from the High Atlas Mountains, one from New Zealand.
It's an unusual pairing for a Moroccan rug, and a deliberate one. Here's why we spin two of the finest wools in the world together rather than choosing just one, and what that blend actually does for the rug that ends up on your floor.
Why One Wool Was Never Going to Be Enough
A Mrirt rug isn't meant to be uniform. Its whole character comes from a pile that mixes thick and fine strands into something denser and more varied than a classic Beni Ourain, richer to look at and more resilient underfoot. No single fleece, however good, naturally grows both extremes at once. So instead of compromising on one wool that's merely adequate at everything, we blend two wools that are each excellent at something specific, and let the rug keep the best of both.
Two Wools, Two Jobs
Sheared by hand from hardy mountain sheep grazed at altitude, this wool is naturally coarser and higher in lanolin, which gives it a subtle sheen and a bit of built-in water resistance. It's the wool the Mrirt tradition has always been built on, and it's what gives the rug its backbone, its structure, and its rustic, tribal character.
Long known among weavers and mills worldwide for its fineness, brightness, and elasticity, New Zealand wool takes dye more evenly for cleaner, more saturated colour, and its long staple fibres spring back into shape underfoot rather than flattening the way a coarser strand can. It's graded far more consistently, too, which means the softness stays even from one skein to the next.
Neither wool is trying to replace the other. Each one is doing a job the other can't quite do on its own.
Why This Blend Works Specifically for Mrirt
A Beni Ourain rug is prized for a smooth, even pile in one consistent wool, so blending would only work against it. A Mrirt rug is built the opposite way: it's already meant to combine different wool strands into a denser, more intricate texture. That's exactly where a second wool earns its place. The Atlas strand carries the weight and the character; the New Zealand strand fills in the softness and the evenness the Atlas wool alone can't quite offer at that density. The result is closer to what a Mrirt rug has always been reaching for, just with a little more consistency built in.
How It's Spun and Woven
The two wools are carded and spun together before they ever reach the loom, plied into a single yarn rather than knotted in as separate rows. That matters: a rug where two wools sit side by side reads as patchy, while one where they're spun into the same thread reads as a single, richer material. From there, the yarn goes through the same hand-knotting our weavers use on every Mrirt piece, sometimes combined with a flat-woven pass for extra density, exactly as the tradition calls for. The blend changes what's in the yarn. It doesn't change how the rug is made.
Does Blending Wool Change the Rug's Authenticity?
A wool blend isn't a shortcut, and it isn't a synthetic filler standing in for the real thing. Every fibre in a Benisouk Mrirt rug is wool, sourced with care, spun by hand, and knotted by the same Atlas artisans using the same techniques passed down through their families. Choosing to pair two wools is a material decision, not a departure from craftsmanship. What makes the rug authentic was never the postcode a single fleece came from, it's the hands that spun, knotted, and finished it.
What the Blend Feels Like Underfoot
More resilient, the New Zealand wool's spring keeps the pile from flattening in high-traffic rooms.
Softer than a single mountain wool alone, without losing the density Mrirt rugs are known for.
Richer, more even colour, since the finer strand takes dye more readily than a coarser one.
Built to hold up, the coarser Atlas wool still carries the structural weight of the rug.
Caring for a Wool-Blend Mrirt Rug
A blended pile is cared for the same way any hand-knotted wool rug is: gentle, regular vacuuming, blotting rather than rubbing out spills, and the occasional airing outdoors to keep it fresh. If you want the full routine, our guide to cleaning a Moroccan rug covers it step by step, blend or no blend, the habits are the same.
The Wool Blend, In Short
High Atlas wool brings structure and character, hand-sheared from mountain sheep and rich in natural lanolin.
New Zealand wool brings softness and consistency, fine, bright, and evenly graded.
The two are spun together, not knotted in separately, so the rug reads as one material.
It suits Mrirt rugs specifically, a style already built around mixed wool strands and a denser pile.
Every fibre is still wool, still hand-knotted, by the same Atlas artisans, using the same traditional technique.
Shop Benisouk's collection of hand-knotted Mrirt rugs, woven from High Atlas and New Zealand wool spun together by artisans in Morocco.
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