We’ve been really busy – one of the things that has delayed our blog post is our new website: Two Sisters Ecotextiles (twosistersecotextiles.com). It is a retail website, because we feel everybody should have access to safe fabrics. If you go to our new site, you’ll notice that it features lots of pictures of kids, …
Our previous blog post we talked about fabric – how to determine the quality of the fabric you’re considering for your new sofa. But the most important consideration merits a blog all its own, and that is the safety of the fabrics you’ve chosen. We define “safe” as a fabric that has been processed with …
In 2012, Greenpeace analyzed a total of 141 items of clothing, and found high levels of phthalates in four of the garments and NPE’s in 89 garments – in quantities as high as 1,000 ppm – as well as a variety of other toxic chemicals. Phthalates and NPE’s are among the chemicals known as …
We received a comment on one of our blog posts recently in which the reader chastised us for exaggerating issues which they believe are disproportionate to the facts. In their words: For instance formaldehyde… is a volatile chemical…no doubt it is used in the textile industry a great deal…but looking for this chemical in end …
Sometimes I wonder if I’m making too much fuss about organic fabrics. I mean, we live surrounded by textiles, and nobody – well, o.k., most people – don’t have immediate reactions to the fabric. I can use towels and sheets and still wake up in the morning feeling just fine. Organic fabrics don’t look or …
Americans live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, yet American children are less likely to live to age 5 than children in comparable nations – and I was shocked to find that America has the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world.[1] Our children are especially vulnerable to the presence of …
So we have produced the frame and put in the suspension system. Next in line are the cushions – something soft to sit on. In an upholstered piece of furniture, the cushions need a filler of some kind. Before plastics, our grandparents used feathers, horsehair or wool or cotton batting. But with the advent of …
This post was published about two years ago, but it’s time to re-run it, because Greenpeace has published its expose of the endocrine disruptors (APEOs and NPEOs) they found in garments produced by major fashion brands (like Levis, Zara, Calvin Klein and others). Click here to read their report. Many chemicals used in textile processing …
There are some things about lead that are not in dispute: 1. that lead causes brain damage; 2. that the effect of lead exposure is the same whether it is ingested, absorbed or inhaled; 3. and for children, there is no safe level of lead in blood – any lead will cause some toxic effect. …
Last week we took a look at chromium in textiles – and leather. With the increased interest in avoidance of certain chemicals and industrial products that are particularly harmful to our environment, it’s not surprising that manufacturers are becoming ingenious in pointing out attributes that play to this script. So we now see claims for …
OEcotextiles 