Blankie, Blankies and Baby Blankies - 101 Guide to Baby Blankets

I recently reviewed a natural products industry proposal for standards for “organic” cotton and was dismayed to see the heavy-handed corporate assault on what should be a cut and dried issue: the naturalness of organic cotton and wool.

The creation of natural and organic textiles is really a very basic concept, not unlike the process of growing, harvesting and preparing organic foods. Take organic cotton for example. The cotton should be grown and harvested and processed without harmful chemicals in accordance with the principles of organic agriculture and organic food preparation. Wool from sheep or other animals can be “harvested” from animals that are free-range, organically-raised and humanely sheared. Simple.

For millions of years humans experimented with the colors from plants that grew around them and painted their bodies and textiles with natural pigments. Today, many craftspeople still practice natural dyeing techniques with beautiful and unique results.

There are hundreds of plants that can be grown easily, organically and sustainably to produce a wide range of lovely colorings.

So what´s the problem? As peaceful and pretty as organic cotton sounds, the ugly truth is that, with the infiltration of the giant corporate interests, the organic cotton industry is very dirty indeed. Many companies flaunt the rhetoric: no pesticides, no herbicides and low-impact dyes. Low-impact dyes? Hold on here. We need some additional information. But before we expound upon dyes, let´s fill in the gaps between the harvesting of cotton and the dye processing.

Cotton (and other natural fibers) must be cleaned extremely well to remove plant pectins, waxes and oils so that the fiber can accept a colorant. Textile processing involves lots and lots of water, often boiling water in a preliminary process known as “retting” and the final cleaning phase also commonly involves the use of detergents, caustic agents–chemical acids, even bio-engineered enzymes. Is the cleaning done with organic castile soaps? No, sadly, it is a common practice for the washing phase to be done with conventional detergents, most times petrochemical-based detergents.

Mercerized cotton. You may recognize this term from the label on a spool of thread or on a denim fabric. This is just one of many caustic chemical treatments used on modern cotton. Other pre-dye processing treatments involve the use of harsh acids or enzymes. Do these treatments sound like they are environmentally-friendly? They don´t sound friendly because they´re really not.

Now we can move on to the “low-impact dyes.” In the past few decades there has been significant scientific concern over the health and environmental impact of petrochemical dyes and there has been some research into the creation of less toxic chemical dyes and dyeing processing. Unfortunately, nearly 100% of all commercial textiles, including the textiles identified as “low-impact dyed organic,” are dyed using synthetic petrochemical dyes. The phrase “low-impact dye” does not equal a botanically-based dye! You might be surprised to learn that there are no government regulations for the processing of “organic” cotton and that there is no legal definition of the phrase “low-impact dye.”

“Organic” cotton textile producers latched on to the “low-impact” phrase and, currently, use it with abandon. Many synthetic dyes have serious issues of ecotoxicity and human toxicity. Chemical dyes have been proven to be a problem through dermal (wearing clothes all day) and oral absorption (children often suck on fabrics/blankets) and from dyes that are dumped into the drinking water and via consumption of marine life that is contaminated with chemical dyes from polluting of their habitat. Many dyes have, at one end, serious issues with allergenicity (dermatitis, eczema) and, on the greater side, large problems with carcinogenicity and mutagen and teratogen potential.

Because it has been proven that chemicals in textiles can be ingested and absorbed through the skin, it is imperative that fibers that are labeled as “organic” should be grown, harvested and processed without harmful chemicals in accordance with the principles and current regulations of organic agriculture and organic food preparation.

Many companies claim that their dyes and dyeing processes have less impact on the environment compared to conventional textiles because, they claim, that their dye processes dump less synthetic dye and other toxic processing chemicals into the environment and that the dyes themselves are less toxic. However, because there are also no regulations that require textile manufacturers to disclose their processing methods or their chemical dye’s specifications, consumers have no access to hard facts to evaluate chemical information for themselves. The corporations who are working behind the scenes to create the standards for “organic” textiles (and “organic” personal care products) want to keep consumers in the dark–the less information that consumers have the more money the corporations can make.

Right now the only aspect of “organic” cotton that is regulated as certified by the federal government is the growing and harvesting of cotton. Whatever is done to the cotton after it is harvested and how it is labeled and marketed is completely open to the whims of the manufacturer of the finished product. This lack of regulation has created a bonanza of riches for those manufacturers seeking to capitalize on and exploit the growing interest in healthier fabric and clothing options. Sadly, people are being misled and are not getting the healthy products that they think they are.

There is a dedicated woman, Sally Fox, who has been developing very unique cotton strains through traditional hybridization techniques for many years. Sally´s cotton, widely known as FoxFiber, is grown organically and grows naturally in incredibly beautiful shades of natural greens, beiges, browns and blues. Imagine, cotton grown in colors that requires no chemical processing or chemical dyes! What a truly environmentally-friendly, healthy and sustainable crop and product!

The FoxFiber cotton can be grown organically, cleaned with mild chemical-free castile soaps and then woven into all manner of clothing and household products. The bizarre problem with natural, color-grown cotton is that it really is organic. Color-grown cotton makes chemically-treated cotton appear to be a bad environmental choice for health-oriented people. Big companies that rely on brightly-colored textiles don´t want people to know the truth about FoxFiber or the truth about their chemically-treated fibers so they are joining together behind the scenes to create a set of watered-down, very weak standards for what they want to call “organic” cotton.

Beware! Don´t be fooled by clever marketing gymnastics. Tell companies you don´t like their “low-impact” dyes. Tell them you want “NO-impact” dyes. If more companies would invest in Sally´s color-grown cotton research, we might be able to have an even wider range of naturally-grown cotton colors. What about Mother Nature´s coloring options? There are millions of plants around the world that have the potential to be grown (organically, of course) and utilized for their no-impact colorant properties. The giant textile manufacturers would rather use cheap petrochemical dyes than invest in botanical dye research applications and dye plant agricultural cultivation projects (that could support organic family farming operations) because they are more interested in profits than in protecting human health and supporting true environmental sustainability. Tell the USDA that going half way isn´t good enough and that you believe that color-grown cotton or organic cotton (or hemp or linen or wool) dyed with organically-grown plant dyes are the only textiles that deserve to be called “organic.” Chemical detergent washing aids, chemical dyes and other chemical or synthetic or bio-engineered textile processing aids are NOT acceptable for cotton or wool or hemp or linen products that are labeled as “organic.”

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