Why Organic Fabric?

The fabrics we live with contain a lot of chemicals - chemicals that are sometimes outlawed in other products - such as:

Even a fabric that advertises as being made of "100% organic cotton" is about 77% cotton and 23% synthetic chemicals (if conventionally processed, as most are).

The fabrics we live with also contribute to environmental pollution:

  • Textile processing uses a lot of water - it takes about 500 gallons to make enough fabric to cover just one sofa, making the textile industry the #1 industrial polluter of fresh water in the world.
  • Textile processing also uses many quantities of chemicals: it can take 25 pounds of chemicals to create the fabric for that one sofa. The process water, full of chemicals, may be dumped into our groundwater untreated, where it will first impact fish and other aquatic animals. Then, farmers use it to irrigate fields, entering our food chain.

What are organic fabrics?

Organic fabrics are made from natural fibers. But what makes a fabric "organic" is not simply the fact that organic fibers are used, but that the entire process was done using chemicals that are safe for humans. 

There is a big difference between an organic cotton bedsheet and an organic bedsheet.

 

What is the difference? The fiber, organic cotton, may have been raised concerning health and safety of the planet and people; but the production of the fabric made from that cotton was not.

 

There are many steps in the production of fabric AFTER the fiber stage. Textile production steps can include carding, retting, scouring, bleaching, spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing, finishing, and many other steps.

Think of making applesauce: you can start with organic apples, but if you add Red Dye #2, preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilizers, and other synthetic chemicals, you do not end up with organic applesauce. 

The same is true with fabrics. One yard of organic cotton fiber conventionally processed into the fabric (that is, not processed to GOTS) contains 73% organic cotton fibers and 27% chemicals, many of which have been proven toxic to humans and animals.

That doesn't mean that Two Sisters does not use chemicals - only that the chemicals used have been proven not to alter your genetic makeup or cause other health problems for you, frogs, hummingbirds, and other living creatures.

If you buy fabric from Two Sisters, not only do you receive the fabric, you also enjoy:

  1. Clean water
  2. Better health
  3. A better environment

... and, you and whales, and the frogs and the hummingbirds could live longer in a more just, sufficiently diversified, balance, more beautiful world.