Your Favorite Faux Fur Suppliers?

[JTAG]

What are your favorite faux fur suppliers and why? Do they have a great selection of colors? Do they offer specialty faux furs like stretch fur or tinsel fur?

A good first community project that I want to start at some point is an annotated master list of faux fur suppliers from around the globe, and I figured this would be a great jumping off point for that :)

Howl Fabrics is my go-to personally, as they have the best selection of colors IMO. Gummyshark was recently brought to my attention as a stretch fur supplier and I'd like to try some of their stuff at some point!

[CAT]

so far we've only bought yardage from 3 fur sources so i'll go through each with some thoughts, with the disclaimer that i've only bought around 20 different furs so far (for 3 different partial suits + some fur from a cosplay i never finished) and i typically do not order more than 3 yards of a given color at once so my perspective is informed from small batches.

• howl fabrics - howl fabrics is generally my go-to, but i have some gripes. their color selection and fur type variety, at least from the scope of US domestic shipping is unbeatable. however it seems that their golden age seems to be ending. shipping times are completely unreliable and unpredictable. i've had orders be shipped super fast, i've also had orders that took almost a month to be shipped. they seem to be removing colors rather than restocking and they don't seem to be adding new colors like they used to. i am hoping the removal of colors and snail pace of restocks isn't a sign of an eventual move to liquidation, but honestly with the lack of communication they have i have no clue.
  
  i haven't had a negative experience with fur quality yet but i have seen multiple accounts from makers about being reluctant to continue using howl or just outright refuse to continue using them for new projects.

• fursuit supplies - my experience ordering fur with fursuit supplies has been generally positive. we've received two pieces with large markings on them, but the majority of the fur is usable and shaves well. however, the baby blue i recently received has a backing that is almost too soft for comfort but it's workable, i just hope this is not a sign of a decline in quality control. they have some colors unique to them, but restocks tend to take ages, like howl. i've been eyeing the monster baby blue fur for nearly half a year and it still hasn't restocked .

• big z - we've only ordered a half yard from big z (fall 2025) but it was honestly a nightmare to deal with. when planning our personal suits we tried to avoid them as much as possible due to their reputation. we we're crunching a project and got stuck with a really low quality piece (half yard) of fur that due to time constraints we attempted to work with, only for it to bald horribly with light use. since then i've only used big z for mochi and neoprene, which i've found a shame since they have the best ship times out of all the other sources i've listed.
  
  there has been recent developments of note with big z though. in the last few month's they've started working directly with glitzy fox and pinku's crafty cottage to rectify big z's reputation with makers through more transparency, a direct line of communication and development of new fur lines better suited for fursuit making. there's a large telegram group setup to facilitate communication between makers and big z with glitzy and pinku as liaisons as well as allowing community voting and suggestions.
  
  at the time of writing this really feels promising and i've seen plenty of reviews raving about the new flokati in particular! i plan on ordering samples sometime after FCL to plan out a premade if all goes well. big z also has a lot of specialty fur but i want to ask another maker about it before ordering yardage.

i'd also like to give an honorable mention to canfur. i ordered swatches from them a few years ago and i wish i could find them as they were extremely high quality, not to mention the beautiful vibrant unique colors they stock. if the international shipping situation becomes more digestible (or at least stabilizes long term) in the USA i would really love to buy some yardage.

i'm really hoping that in the next few years we see a more reliable big z, and more community based projects like canfur grow to prominence as i feel concerned about howl's decline.