Natural Clothing Blog

Longing for clothing reflecting the concerns about sustainability, Natural Clothing Company introduced their own basic clothing line. The fabric used is organic cotton, sustainably grown in Texas. Th line is inspired by people comments of what they  need and like. Simplicity.

“I like the message ‘Live Green’ and the symbols of simple life. These garments are stating a wish, not a demand and are usually met with a smile,” the owner says — at least in places like her local Farmers Market in Snohomish, Washington.

Natural Clothing Company commitment to sustainability shows in its vegan, natural and organic clothing store where you may search clothing choices by fiber – hemp, organic cotton, bamboo and even soy fiber reclaimed from making tofu.

“Live Green” selection consists of natural, mostly unbleached certified organic cotton. Nothing is printed with PVC containing plastisol – so garments are a great choice for people with sensitive skin. While every manufacturing step involves some compromise, “I try to navigate the best possible choices, there is always more room to keep raising the standards higher” owner explains.

“There are so many people with skin problems, having hard time with chemically laden clothing. Also, since I am a gardener, the bottom line for me is: after the years of use, if I can throw the clothes into my compost, because they don’t have toxins, metals , PVCs and so on,  they will decompose and improve the soil, help grow vegetables. You can feel really good about it.”

You can find out more about Live Green clothing at NnaturalClothingCompany.com/live-green-cotton-organic-clothing

At the recent radio interview, consumers inquired “How green is bamboo clothing?” Is bamboo a true and viable eco-friendly material? Bamboo clothing is popping up more and more often, not just in selective boutiques but at the main chain retailers across the US. Always promoting it as being eco-friendly, sometimes organic, sometimes anti-bacterial. Is it true? In case of bamboo even green activists seem to be quite divided, so no wonder that general consumer is quite confused. The additional controversy is added by the fact that China is the only place where bamboo is processed,  simply that’s where the patent is closely held.

Well, to some extend it is an illusion that one plant, one fiber will be everything we want it to be, wearing a green halo around its leaves. The simplicity is that commercial manufacturing of anything is not a black and white (or green) process, period. Breaking down the fiber requires either significant mechanical (energy consuming) efforts and water or chemical processes. The true evaluation comes from looking across all the factors involved from start to end AND comparing it to alternatives. That places that product higher or lower on the scale of sustainability.

Bamboo as a crop is actually classified as grass and is one of the fastest growing plants on a planet. Talking about renewable – you cannot really beat that. On top of it, bamboo fends off the insects and pests very well, so it does not need chemical spraying and requires very little water to grow. A lot of eco friendly clothing is made from actually certified organic bamboo, grown in truly sustainable manner. When bamboo grows, magic happens – it processes carbon dioxide in volumes larger than similar size trees. That is probably actually the biggest benefit of bamboo crop where it truly earns our support. Bamboo unaltered fibers have also multitude of wonderful characteristics, mentioned later in the article.

The problem is that – according to Federal Trade Commission, there is no evidence that these properties actually stay with the fabric after is processed. Bamboo is processed a lot and at this time is not processed organically at all. The fibers are broken down and dissolved through series of chemical processes, sprayed through the small holes and then regenerated back again into cellulose fiber. The FTC requires calling “bamboo textile” a rayon or viscose, being chemically altered, not carrying the characteristics of original fiber and a man-made textile. For more information, go to www.ftc.gov and search bamboo. There are many types of viscose, some

created from wood, cotton and some – from bamboo in similar process. There is a lot of effort put into creating better processing methods and not releasing the chemicals but reused. There is also bamboo processed mechanically like flax but it’s not very common.

The finish viscose from bamboo is quite beautiful though it might vary depending on length of fibers. It is extremely soft, has beautiful sheen and it being anti-static drapes very well, allowing for flattering clothing.  Like I mentioned before there are legal limits of what I can say about viscose from bamboo but I can share my own experience. I was stunned when I used bamboo towels at first, it wicked water so well, much better than our old friend cotton. Bamboo is said to have anti-bacterial properties, similar to hemp or soy, which inhibits creation of body odor. Is it true?  My son loves wearing his bamboo Tee for PE classes (despite different intentions of his mother) because it absorbs the moisture so well and there is no unpleasant smell, same for his bamboo socks. That’s a sell! It is very comfortable and it washes very well without losing any color or getting much wrinkles. Probably the best is to give it a try – all in all considering the benefits of bamboo as crop, great properties of clothing itself and especially comparing it to oil derived polyesters, this textile has quite a lot to be respected for.

For more info visit http://www.naturalclothingcompany.com/bamboo_clothing

Do you remember the 70’s  - with leaded gas cars, polluted skies, and when rivers caught fire?  Look how far we have come! When Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson created this movement in 1970, 20 million Americans joined the protest. Today Earth Day Network expects 1.5 billion people to be part of global events and programs.

The green community of Snohomish invites you to join us in celebrating Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary. On Thursday April 22nd, 1 pm – 6 pm, local green businesses, farmers, and organizations will display their products and services in KlaHaYa Park, right off historic First Street by the Snohomish River. Various businesses along First Street will also be participating.

Recycling Queen Karen of Snohomish Farmers Market, Full Circle Farm, Flying Tomato and Caruso Farm will present their green ways and eco-friendly methods. Cedar Grove Compost will share secrets of successful composting and Earth Wise Excavation explains how earth work can be done sustainably with care for the environment. Natural Clothing Company will display organic clothing of hemp, organic cotton and other natural fibers, along with information why are organic textiles important for you and even better for the planet! The Boys and Girls Club will display art made from recycled materials. Sip organic coffee from Java Inn while sampling certified organic skincare products from NYR Organic Skincare. Rowdy Rascals Toy Store will demonstrate which toys are safe for your youngsters. Come and meet Chris from Wolf College as he describes his fascinating camps and classes on survival skills and his fascinating camps and classes on surviving in the mountains, wild cooking and herbology and more. SongCroft is a self sufficiency school and a family farm run by Marilene Richardson, who is not only Master Gardner, Certified Permaculture Designer but also an originator of Foundation for Sustainable Community. Check out www.NaturalClothing.com/Earth_Day for a other exhibitors, like Esoterica Candles – all natural soy wax candles, hand-crafted locally.

Each exhibitor will answer the question: how is your business/organization sustainable? The answers might be as varied as the issue. Is it organic? Energy efficient? Recyclable? Reusable? Compostable? Helpful to future generations? You can ponder on that and your own definition at Grilla Bites Cafe, which offers delicious food with lots of organic choices and non-gluten or non –diary options. Grilla Bites composts its trash, serves as a pick up place for the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and is a great gathering spot for the community. Join us there after the event for great food at a special Earth Day discount and appropriately enough – Dirt Cake! Also, a showing of the 20 min video by Annie Leonard “The Story of Stuff”, will be a great finale for an amazing day!

Thursday’s Earth Day event is sponsored by Natural Clothing Company and Grilla Bites Café with help from City of Snohomish and Historic Downtown Snohomish.

Don’t forget to join us on Saturday, April 24th, 9 am to 4 pm – for the City of Snohomish Spring Clean-Up. Join us at the Boys and Girls Club, 402 Second Street, for sign up and assignments. Bring gloves, rakes and enjoy a day of fun and community spirit helping to make the city more beautiful. This yearly event is sponsored by City of Snohomish, Chamber of Commerce, Lions Club, Kiwanis Club and the Snohomish Parks Foundation. There will be lunch served by the Snohomish Lions Club. The Household Clean-Up is held at the City shop yard, 1801 First St where City of Snohomish residents can dispose of household waste items.

There might be no uniform definition of “sustainable” but it is simple to recognize when one really cares about their environment. Our community certainly does –come and see!

In our not-so-natural anymore world I ask myself this question a lot: how much technology do we really need and want in our life to live better?

It is a very interesting question. Nano-technology fascinates many by binding particles like silver, with its anti-bacterial properties, with common materials presumably for our benefit. But there are also serious opponents of that technology with valid concerns about possible health dangers.  As the owner of Natural Clothing Company, I come across much of different and often very interesting information, which does not have a clear cut answers.

Take for example the Chinese Hebei Metals & Minerals Corp, a producer of fiberglass insulation, mineral wool and calcium silicate insulation. These products make an organic person like me shiver… But let’s look. The company is exploring other hi-tech applications as production and sale of the anti-electromagnetic radiation fabric, anti-static fabric and apparel. Their anti radiation material was used by for astronauts.

As many holistic people confirm, there is a growing concern about the effects of electromagnetic wave (microwave) and increased by it cell temperature on human organisms. Hence the concept of anti-electromagnetic radiation fabric was born, shielding 99.99 percent of harmful electromagnetic waves.

Hebei  other path of research involves two naturally occurring materials like bamboo fiber & silver, then spinning and weaving together. The result is an anti-bacterial fiber, which retains its properties with washing, sun etc. On a surface, sounds like natural product. Is it?

OK, my actual question is: can we really protect ourselves from ill effects of technology by increasing our use of the technology itself? Are we playing catch-22 with ourselves?

Hemp, bamboo, even soy  have inherent anti-bacterial properties serving us, as in case of hemp for thousands of years. Well, does it protect from  electromagnetic waves?  Who knows… I know the vibrations of natural fibers do increase our well-being, consciously or subconsciously.  When you put on natural fiber clothing,  your body registers something, a vibe of goodness, a breath of relief.  Maybe a solution is  a “middle path”:  we limit the offensive forces in environment, while we work like crazy to grow and process natural fibers organically. If we fast enough we might repair some of the damage to our earthly home and ourselves.  What do you think?

The best part of our green business, Natural Clothing Company, are people we meet. Anne from San Francisco introduced us to the project building a new medical center at the base of the Himalayas between Nepal and India. When our family moved away from Seattle few years ago, our son was in a serious health condition. We measured prospective homes in terms of how long would it take us to get him to the Children’s Hospital in emergency. For kids in Jambange a trip to medical help might be impossible right now.

Here is what Anne says: “As a yoga instructor, and customer of the natural clothing company I support the Jambange Project. We are raising funds to build a medical center at the village, and we hope to see in the future the village becoming sustainable by itself. Donating a contribution to the Jambange Project will help all the people at the village to get medical care. You can contact OmGuru for donations. Check out the Jambange website! www.jambange.com . Thank You all!”

Another beautiful part of green movement is that Anne is French, I am Polish, you are who you are. The project is in Himalayas and there are no boundaries to compassion.

I finally got to read “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. What a book! I heard a lot about it, so I expected somewhat of a dry preaching about the state of planet, how messed up we are and what exactly will happen to each species. What a surprise! The book is not like that at all.

It is wonderfully easy to read, elegant prose that taught me many things that I have never heard about. I learned about the ancient 18 stories deep underground dwellings in Turkey, provided shelter through thousands years of conflicts since 700 BC. I read with interests about place close to my heart – a 600 bison preserve in my native Poland. Alan Weisman writes about hundreds of small colorful details but paints them so lightly that you don’t feel overwhelmed but opposite – intrigued. Alan weaves gently like a painted landscape of  watercolors. As a reader you see different parts and eventually very slowly a bigger view reveals itself. Somewhere within the book, casually, a deeper understanding grows. It is about our role as species in regards to this planet called home. What was here before and what might be after… The nagging question starts to arise – what value did we really bring? What about all art, music, architecture? What did we really contribute here? What is the legacy we would leave? And who will be left to even theoretically benefit from our time limited presence?

It occurred to me that this question is a large scale of the true question that we try as parents to instill in our son’s and daughter’s hearts. “More ice cream” seems fun now. “Play now, work later” seems fun for a while.  ”I’ll try it just once…”, well, we know what happens… It is only if we look at things in magnified terms of long period of time or larger magnitude than ourselves, “what happens if we do all the time?”, “what if all others do the same?” that gives insight and correct judgment on the direction worth taking.

Alan Wiseman presented us that large scale very skillfully, showing gently by facts where we are heading, without the drama or nagging. It is very probable that each of us will take completely different lesson from that book. One thing is sure, we will never will look at the world the same.

A tiny town of Kamikatsu, Japan decided few years ago to limit their waste. They started with separating all household waste into 34 different categories designated for recycling. They found it cheaper and more environmentally friendly than alternatives. Look at the picture of their bins!

A bit of work but what if… all the towns do that? What if… all of us did that? The corporations…? What our planet will look like?

On a personal note, since we moved to the country, our joy of reusing material things increased: scraps got to animals, reused paper scraps go to compost, rich compost goes to our soil and we get these awesome vegetables. The unity of this cycle puts the soul at ease.

Many people commented that there was already too much media regarding Michael Jackson. I don’t know, I am not even a huge personal fan of the artist but at the same time, I appreciate the genius of his music. As his art seemingly filled everything last week, I re-watched his video of Earth Song. Why this song is such an environmental rock in Europe but never gained equal visibility in U.S.?  Is it because we wanted to see the features of Michael, the eccentric idol but not the humanitarian, caring deeply about the planet, a founder and benefactor of Heal the World Foundation? Would this not fit the mold we have made for him?

Whatever the case is, re-watch the video. It is filmed with authentic clips and it speaks for all of us.

I delivered yesterday some Tee shirts to a group of kids at the foothills of Cascade Mountains.  Children were completing a survival week run by Wolf Camp from Snohomish,  Washington. Sitting in a comfortable shade of a  large tree, the small group of youngsters demonstrated the actual skills they learned that week and shared their stories.  Presentation  was very impressive: how to make a wood bowl using the fire coals, which native plants are safe to eat, a tea out of pine needles was shared, we saw how to build a warm shelter using forest  debris. But the most exciting part came when the boys showed us how to start the fire. No matches, of course… It took less than 10 minutes using their handmade tool of tied sticks (even though  the original attempts took couple of hours, we hear…).  They shared then how their appreciation changed for fire and water, their meaning to life, driven by their first hand experience. It was very touching.

Adults gathered in circle looked with pride at the camp participants, grateful for sharing this experience and applauding, just like their kids when the fire was born.  At the same time it was hard not to reflect on  how far we are now from appreciating the most fundamental basis of survival. Majority of us have shelter in warm houses full of asbestos insulation, we have stores full of neat cardboard boxes full of well preserved particles called food and fire flowing at will by flipping a switch. Don’t misunderstand me – I would never express any interest in living in a cave again. Proponents of sustainability by giving up any and all progress are unrealistic and ineffective. It would not resolve much for our civilization as it is.

But to disconnect completely, as we do now,  from understanding, caring and valuing the actual sources of shelter, fire, water and food – is counter-survival. It leads to abuse of Nature close to the point of no return  - putting toxic debris, sprays, sludge in waters, air, soil and consequently in our foods – escapes rationalization. We create modified plants, our food sources, so they would withstand these toxins and then feed it to our children and our animals. We put enough preservatives in “food” so it can stand on a shelf for weeks, how are they suppose to magically decompose in our stomachs?  We spray cotton crops with toxins so insects can’t touch it and then we sleep on it.  Any logic here?

Let’s start by waking  up every day and as we look up to the sky for the sun, let’s give our thanks to the trees for still being there for us, despite everything; to soil still willing to bear us plants, despite everything; to the life around us still willing to persist and forgive us and share with us. Let’s don’t forget to thank the fire for still willing to be born.