You can have a profound positive impact on the health of all living things through your fabric choices.
Profound? Really?
Yes. The textile industry is gigantic, and it is gigantically polluting. It uses gargantuan amounts of three things: chemicals, water, and energy. It uses too many unsavory chemicals, many of which remain in the fabric; is one of the leading industrial polluters of water in the world; and adds hugely more to carbon problems than necessary. We want to change that.
We produce our fabrics – from field through the finished fabric - with careful attention to six critical categories with which we try to capture all issues of environmental and human safety:
- Impact upon the environment
- Impact upon human and animal health and safety - including toxicity and animal husbandry.
- Carbon Footprint
- Social Justice
- Water Treatment
- End of Life
In order to produce fabrics safe enough to use for your newborn, we have tried to both identify and to address every harmful aspect of the textile industry. We have carefully considered the health and ecological concerns with the fabrics we offer.
We have eliminated the use of chemicals of concern, which have been proven to cause a myriad of human illnesses, to create fabric safe for all life.
With our fabrics, you will not be contributing to the microfiber shedding problem in our waters because we do not use fabrics made from synthetic fibers. We write about this in our blog. It is an urgent concern for our oceans.
Our fabrics are third-party compliant or certified to meet either the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) or OEKO-TEX Standard 100.
Below are some of the questions we asked over the years and what we have found out. Two Sisters began as O Ecotextiles in 2002. We've been blogging about our findings since 2007 and you can find our blog here.
Please note: We are not scientists, so sometimes we get it wrong. This is a conversation. Let us know if you have something else to offer. We believe in honesty. We hope you will reward us by supporting us through your purchases.
- Aren't all fabrics safe?
- Can tiny amounts of chemicals hurt me?
- What chemicals are unsafe?
- How do chemicals enter our bodies?
- Doesn't the government protect me?
- Can I ask the retailer to find out what's in the fabric?
- Can I wash out the chemicals?
- How can we make sure a fabric is free of chemicals of concern?
- What does it mean for a fabric to be GOTS certified?
- What does it mean for a fabric to be Oeko-Tex certified?
- Why “organic fabric” and what is it?
- Why is water treatment important?
- Carbon Footprint Considerations
- Which of your fabrics work best for upholstery?
- What abrasion tests mean
- Soil Resistant Finishes