Texture in Cats’ Coats

September 29, 2026

Liz Watson, CFA Judge Emeritus

It is often said a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, and so it is with a cat’s coat. Whether it’s long, short, curly, wired, spotted, or striped, it is often the first thing we notice. Each pedigreed breed has its own unique description of coat, which include words such as silky, satiny, plush – all of which are easy to define and interpret to coat texture. And it is coat texture that we’re going to talk about today. “Silky” brings to mind the feel of luxurious fabric: soft, smooth to the touch, glossy to the eye. We find it mentioned in about 13 different breeds in both longhair and shorthair categories, with the RagaMuffin and Tonkinese as good examples. “Satiny” is another term we relate to both touch and the eye, being soft and smooth, but with the added vision of gloss or sheen. The Bombay immediately comes to mind as you can almost see your reflection in the shine of the coat. “Plush” speaks to soft, thick, fur … perhaps with a nap as in fine velvet. This is surely evident in the shorthair Selkirk Rex.  However, in doing research for this article I came upon a couple of descriptions that could give pause: “hard” and “resilient.” What is meant by these two terms, and in which breeds are they particularly evident?

Hard Coat

“Hard” is used to describe the coat texture of the American Shorthair, and when we think of cats’ coats, that word rarely comes to mind. The standard says, “short, thick, even, hard in texture.” I know we think of all cats’ coats as soft, but American Shorthair breeders want you to feel a lack of softness, with a resistance to pressure. Believe me, it’s hard to come by. I remember the first time I felt it – a blue classic tabby American Shorthair. The light went on, and I knew what they meant by “hard” as that cat’s coat texture was hard to the touch. The standard puts 15 of 100 points on coat, so hardness of texture is something breeders work toward. The breed council secretary describes it as such: “I believe that the outer coat (guard hairs) should be firm, and while they can bend with pressure, they should bow and not collapse. The coat should be even. The correct coat lies flat but feels a bit harsh and cleanly snaps back into place when the hair is brushed or rubbed backwards. The undercoat should be dense enough to provide protection against wind and rain and is usually softer and denser than the guard hairs. Overly dense undercoat will prevent snap back of the outer coat. The coat is neither soft nor plushy.” Another factor of hardness is that it is non-porous and extremely hard to get wet, even with the diminished awn layer. The shorthair Manx is another breed that uses “hard” in describing the coat: “texture of outer guard hairs is somewhat hard.” In both the shorthair Manx and the American Shorthair, color can have an effect on the hardness of a coat.

Resilient Coat

The next conundrum is “resilient,” with several breeds using this word in their standard. The definition of “resilient” reveals synonyms that help explain its use in the standards of different breeds: flexible, strong, durable, buoyant, or adaptable. For the Abyssinian, the coat bounces back when roughed or pushed against the grain; the American Bobtail coat is impervious to weather; the shorthair American Curl coat is flat (unable to stay open when roughed). The American Wirehair wired coat has a resilience related to a push back when touched.

The Bengal coat is close-lying with “minimal resilience.” Here again, I reached out to the breed council secretary who identifies it thus:

“In Bengals, ‘inimal resilience’ is generally interpreted as a coat that returns little resistance when touched (soft, flowing, close-lying, and almost velvet). The coat should feel sleek and dense, but without the bounce or lift you would expect in breeds selected for volume or insulation. Part of this is indeed linked to the coat being very close-lying to the body. A correct Bengal coat ideally follows the contours of the cat and enhances the streamlined, athletic silhouette rather than obscuring it. From a biological and functional perspective, many Bengal traits can be traced back to the image and function of a small, nocturnal wild cat. In wild cats such as the Asian Leopard Cat, the coat is not meant to trap debris, moisture, or vegetation. A sleek, low-resilience coat helps maintain efficiency of movement through dense vegetation and contributes to a clean, tight outline. Excessively resilient, woolly, or open coats tend to lose that functional ‘wild’ impression. The Bengal standard also values texture very highly because it contributes enormously to the illusion of a wild cat. Even when pattern and color are excellent, an incorrect texture can immediately change the overall impression. A proper Bengal coat should almost feel unusually refined for a shorthaired breed: dense and luxurious, but flat, flowing, and without coarseness.”

CFA now accepts the longhair Bengal with its medium to long, flowing and soft coat of luxurious texture with minimal resilience. Another term unique to the Bengal is “glittered.” The standard describes it as an “iridescent shimmer to the coat, caused by light reflection or refraction at hair tips.”  In other words, it seems to sparkle. This can be evident in both the short and long coats.

The Chartreux has a “resilient undercoat with longer protective topcoat.” This resiliency allows the coat to not only bounce back (springy to the touch) but also be protective of harsh environments. Again, I turned to the breed council secretary to ask about the resilient undercoat: “The mature fully-developed coat of the Chartreux resists lying flat and has a ‘springy’ feeling to it, similar to sheep’s wool. In this context, resilience can be taken to mean that it bounces back from strain with a tendency to rise back up to stand semi-erect, rather than by snapping back to a flatter position. A correct Chartreux coat has a large number of awn hairs, which are slightly crinkled, and these crinkly hairs give the coat a lot of texture and a springy character (one might imagine the crinkly hairs as a lot of little bitty springs!) So, one way to think of the intent of the word ‘resilient’ in our standard might be similar to ‘springy.’ It is this woolliness that allows the coat to break or separate, even in repose.” She goes on to say that the word “resilient” can be used in the following context, with words like coarse, heavy, and rugged to describe the Chartreux coat, in contrast with the undesirable qualities of soft and fluffy. Yet a third meaning is “impervious to weather or protective of the environment.” It is a very unique coat indeed.

Of the Egyptian Mau colors, the smoke coat is “silky and fine,” while the silver and bronze coats are “dense and resilient, accommodating bands of ticking,” similar to the Abyssinian. A good resilient coat with proper ticking should snap back like a “deck of cards being shuffled.”

Additional Coat Terms

Another term we don’t often think of relating to cats is “woolliness”. The Chartreux want it – the British Shorthairs do not! Woolliness refers to springiness, as in sheep’s wool. The Chartreux is double-coated with the awn hairs being springy. The British Shorthair is neither double-coated nor woolly, but “very dense, well bodied, firm to the touch.” Here, dense refers to the high number of hairs per square inch. The British Shorthair has one of the densest coats, thus it is a heavy coat, without being woolly.

One other term in describing texture is “wired”, as in the American Wirehair. In this breed, individual hairs are crimped, hooked, or bent. This gives the coat its springiness, resilience, and coarseness, causing the coat to feel almost like a Brillo pad or fine steel wool. There are 45 points allotted for the coat in this breed: the wiredness is its defining feature. As of this year, CFA now accepts the straight-hair American Wirehair. This coat is dense & thick but without wiring.

One last term found in texture is “resistance” in the Sphynx standard. “But wait!” you exclaim. “I thought Sphynx were naked?!” And right you are. Here, resistance refers to the feeling of resistance you get “when stroking the cat.” It is the skin which gives you this feeling. Wrinkled is also a word used in the coat/skin description. Wrinkles are loose folds of skin especially desirable around the muzzle, between the ears, and around the shoulders. However, they should not be so great as to distort the appearance of the head and eyes.

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of texture as it applies to the coats and skin of the various breeds. As always, please visit your local CFA show and see for yourself these silky, satiny, plush, dense, and glittered coats on cats!!

View more cats’ coats and textures in the gallery below. Click on image for a larger version.