If you’re anything like me, you’ve browsed the Angelrox online store and yearned for one of each garment in all your favorite colors.

I love this women’s clothing brand from designer Roxi Suger for reasons I’ve gone on about before†. A quick recap, Angelrox offers:

• Made in the USA
• Woman owned business
• Small New England (Maine) company
• Celebrates bodies of all sizes in its imagery
• Beautiful colors in figure flattering silhouettes
• Comfortable, sustainable knit fabrics including organic cotton
• Great customer service

Most of these factors also make Angelrox garments moderately expensive. The prices are fair, but you’re not going to hit a big closeout sale and overhaul your entire wardrobe at a bargain price like you might at a retail giant importing its goods from low wage nations.

Angelrox is not fast fashion. Consider a purchase from them a way to shop your values and invest in a sustainable wardrobe.

You might like Angelrox if you also wear Eileen Fisher.

The Loop and the Shawl by Angelrox

Here’s a preview of the two specific pieces I’m comparing today, The Loop $38 (infinity scarf) and the Shawl $78 (wrap)

I make repeat buys of the silhouettes that I know and love. Between the Goddess dress $158, Glow gown $188, and Doublet $78, I’m dressed in Angelrox several times each week.

With most orders, I also splurge on at least one new accessory. I’m curious about many styles, and there’s always another color I’d like to see in person. You can only judge hue so well using pictures on the internet.

Accessories are the most affordable way to get my hands on the whole rainbow of Angelrox options. The least expensive choice, The Band $10, doesn’t suit my positively Medieval forehead, but I wear their fingerless gloves (Sleeves, Aria $22 or Opera $28) almost daily as a balm to my arthritic small joints.

Recently, I’ve added The Loop and the Shawl to my Angelrox collection. I ordered both in Violet, a bold magenta.

I had to measure them myself to give you their dimensions. Oddly, Angelrox doesn’t supply measurements on product pages. For a scarf, I think that’s a silly omission.

Angelrox’s signature fabric is a stretchy knit, so consider these numbers rough. They should be sufficient to help make an informed purchasing decision, though.

The Loop is a doubled layer of fabric at 18″ x 28″.

If you aren’t familiar with the “infinity scarf” concept, it’s a regular scarf with the ends sewn together to make a loop. Hence, Angelrox’s wild and crazy nomenclature.

An infinity scarf like The Loop is convenient because it will never slip off your neck and get lost, no matter how windy it gets or how clumsy/forgetful you are. This can be enormously helpful when one’s hands are encumbered with luggage, tickets, and ID.

I wear a lot of silk scarves, most often fastened with some kind of knot. Why? Because silk is slippery and I am, at times, oblivious. The Loop couldn’t slip off, even if it were sewn from silk.

The Shawl is as wide as The Loop’s longest dimension on its short side: 28″. There is a lot more fabric in the Shawl. For added warmth anywhere on the body you need it, or to provide modesty when entering religious buildings, etc., the Shawl will give you more options.

Length was downright hard for me to measure on my own. The stretchy knit makes my estimate of 77″ the least reliable thing I’m posting here. It covered most of a chaise longue in my living room for the dimension photos above.

Due to the stretch material, the Shawl will stay in place over the body better than many woven alternatives. This is a great upside to Angelrox’s lovely, soft fabric that applies to all of their pieces.

For those who prefer a more organic comparison, here’s a comparison of how much fabric each has draped over my arm. The Loop on the left shows much of the closed door behind it. It’s an amply sized neck scarf, but a compact garment overall.

As for the Shawl on the right, it’s filling the frame.

My arms aren’t actually long enough to snap a selfie showing the full size of the Shawl. Its dimensions are very generous and should provide ample coverage for women of every size. My poor son was drafted to “model” the piece. He’s 5′ 7″ or so and has his arms fully extended here.

The Shawl is larger and offers more coverage than most of my woolen pashminas. It is also somewhat less warm for its weight.

Violet should work with more than one of my existing capsule wardrobe color combinations. It was the purplish accents on these two pairs of Ahnu Sugarpine sneakers that prompted me to seek out specific accessories to go with them.

For travel, you might care to know how The Loop and the Shawl compare in terms of packing weight. As should surprise no one, the much larger Shawl weighs more: 338 g vs. The Loop’s 233 g.

Here’s something interesting, though: when worn, I find the greater weight of the Shawl somewhat easier to carry. The doubled fabric of The Loop and its more compact form can feel heavy around my neck when I’m overtired or have a headache‡ coming on.

Sensitive souls, take note: Angelrox attaches their relatively soft anyway fabric care labels with two tiny stitches. They can be removed easily to leave a tag free—irritant free—garment.

You could absolutely keep your packing weight down by packing only silk scarves instead of these Angelrox or any other rayon blend knit versions. Silk can be woven incredibly fine and provide great coverage at a cost of very little volume/weight.

That said, there’s the issue of slipperiness that I mentioned earlier. Also, the dressy character of fine silk may or may not suit the formal/casual tone of the rest of  your preferred wardrobe.

Washability is another vital factor for making informed travel decisions. Silk can usually be washed by hand, and it dries quickly. Rayon, like silk, can also be delicate when wet, but it dries fairly slowly. Other animal fibers might be machine washable, but it is really important to be certain of this status before throwing any woolen item into a machine.

On some trips, though, laundry facilities are available. With access to a washing machine on an adventure calling for bug spray or otherwise getting me seriously dirty, I’d rather pack a scarf I can toss in the machine alongside my casual clothes. Cotton, linen, and rayon blend scarves are my usual choice under these conditions, and Angelrox’s knit fits this category.

I will launder an Angelrox piece in a gentle machine cycle with a mixed load (in a mesh wash bag) when necessary; I would not do the same with my silk scarves or woolen pashminas.*

Angelrox recommends washing their pieces infrequently if possible, and with delicate care. That said, a gentle machine wash is allowed per their laundering recommendations. I wash mine in the washing machine every time.

I do hang Angelrox articles to dry, taking care to lay the voluminous long dresses as flat as possible. I have also finished drying a still damp piece in a low heat dryer on desperate mornings.

I’ve had my oldest pieces for at least two years, wearing them often, and I haven’t worn anything out yet. I haven’t even identified noticeable pilling, let alone color fade. Bright colored rayon knits will eventually fade and show such evidence of washing just like your cotton t-shirts do. Plant fibers simply don’t hold dye as well as protein (animal) fibers do.

I would expect accessories like The Loop and the Shawl to require less frequent washing than a body garment, however, and to therefore remain bright and pristine for a very long time.

Salad dressing stains notwithstanding. I’m not the only one who removes my more voluminous scarves before sitting down to eat, am I?

Following are a few photos of plump, middle aged me modeling The Loop and the Shawl over a Glow Gown (in Ocean) with a Wintersilks silk turtleneck underneath. It was a cold day on which I dressed for comfort instead of fashion, but I do like how nicely the Violet shows up against my more muted layers to illustrate a few uses of each scarf.

The Loop

Shawl

The scarves we carry

Tom Bihn bag fans might enjoy knowing that The Loop packs perfectly into the itty bitty little Cubelet bag. To help the rest of the world with scale, the Cubelet is recommended as a pouch to hold one of those square, white MacBook computer power supplies.

A Cubelet is about five inches square with a capacity of 40 in³/0.6 L. That’s the purple pouch in the following photos.

For the Shawl, on the other hand, which is similar in folded size to my cashmere blend pashminas, you’ll need something the size of the Travel Cubelet or larger.

The Tom Bihn Travel Cubelet is a bit larger than 5″ x 7″ and has a 100 in³/1.7 L capacity. It’s the teal blue/green pouch displayed above.

If relying upon a Travel Cubelet as a tiny day bag for travel, it’s important to note that you won’t fit much more than an iPhone or passport into this little bag with a Shawl inside. A money clip or slim credit card wallet might wedge in as well, but a bulky billfold won’t allow for the voluminous wrap.

It would do for me in a pinch if I were headed out to dinner and felt pretty sure I needed a wrap but feared I’d get overheated and be stuck carrying the damn thing all evening, but it just barely meets that need.

Neither The Loop nor the Shawl would be difficult to schlep around all day with a typical day pack or ladies’ handbag on your arm to stow it if needs must.

I will likely continue to travel with a cashmere/silk blend pashmina on most trips, but my Angelrox Shawl is a contender for warmer weather travel. Primary consideration: if I think I’m more likely to sweat than shiver.

In Violet, it would be a perfect sub for the paisley pashmina (bottom left) in the capsule wardrobe above. Why? Easier to wash and less potential for itchiness with open pores on a hot day.

I wanted to prefer The Loop. At almost half the price of the larger Shawl, I could buy more Loops sooner. I know myself fairly well, however, and I will get better use out of the more traditional Shawl.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the comparison between Angelrox’s The Loop and Shawl. May you, too, wander the world bedecked in your own favorite shades.

Happy and colorful travels!

♦

†Also featured in several travel capsule wardrobes about which I saw fit to blog: San Francisco in autumn and Hilton Head in spring, for example.

‡Reminder: I have a chronic condition. This caveat is only meant as a warning to other highly sensitive souls. I also find all halter tops unbearable and headache-inducing. Their prevalence in shops makes me believe I’m an oddball in this respect!

If you’ve never found yourself taking off your jewelry toward the late afternoon because the weight of a necklace has become an unbearable unwearable burden, you can ignore this bit of advice from me.

*I do hand wash (or use one of the myriad delicate cycles on my Miele washing machine) almost all of my silk, wool, and cashmere items at home. Only structured (typically lined) garments are sent to the dry cleaner.

While the most conservative care advice is to follow religiously the dictates of each item’s tag, the law in the USA only requires that manufacturer’s offer consumers at least one way to maintain it. The law does not demand that “the optimal” option be described.

I wear a lot of silk, cashmere, alpaca, merino wool, etc. I’d go broke if I dry cleaned all of it! I haven’t ruined a piece via laundering yet.