What is the Difference Between a Pashmina and a Scarf?
Pashmina is the material. The scarf describes the size of the fabric.
Pashmina is the original name for cashmere. Pashmina is any fabric woven from pashm, which is the soft inner fleece of the Himalayan mountain goat (capra hircus laniger).
In the West, many people use the word pashmina as a generic word meaning fancy scarf. That is certainly the source of your confusion.
The trouble is the term pashmina is not trademark protected. That means anyone can label anything as pashmina and get away with it. The market is flooded with imitations, and shoppers are confused.
If you want to know about pashmina, I suggest you download my free ebook, Seven Tests for the Real Pashmina. http://pdf.the-real-pashmina.com
Fashion can be quite confusing. There is such a variety of accessories and compliments to an outfit that it is difficult to kept track of them all. This is especially true when it comes to scarves and pashminas. How can we tell the difference between them? The simple answer is that there is not a simple answer. A scarf is defined as “a piece of fabric worn on the head or around the neck for warmth, cleanliness, fashion, or religious reasons.” A pashmina, on the other hand, refers to a type of cashmere wool made from a special breed of Persian goats. It comes from the word “Pashm”, which in Persia means “wool”. From these definitions one might assume a scarf is the actual object worn around your neck and pashmina is a material used to make a scarf. If fashion was only that simple! People refer to the object around their neck as a scarf, a pashmina, and to confuse the subject even more a shawl, or a wrap. There are a number of names that can be used. To break it down as easily as possibl
