What does fair trade mean, really?
Increasingly consumers are concerned about where products come from and how they are made. Most people, if told some manufacturer is using sweatshop labor or employing children, will not buy goods from that company. Likewise, as consumers become aware of the links between truly sustainable production, quality of life for farmers, cost of goods and environmental impacts of cotton growing, they will choose a Fair Trade certified product over one that is not.
Fair Trade certification, coupled with organic certification, ensures that the organic cotton farmer is protected from price fluctuations in the world market and is paid approximately 30% above the price of conventional cotton, a premium which is almost 20% more than the price of non- Fair Trade certified organic cotton. An additional 15% premium goes to the group itself and is used to further social, economic and environmental development in the farmer's village. This total Fair Trade premium ensures farmers an enhanced standard of living.
Fair Trade groups receive training in effective marketing of their cotton, which enables them to sell direct and avoid the middlemen who often deceive and manipulate them to get the lowest price. The Fair Trade premium allows establishment of a community revolving credit fund that makes short-term loans so borrowing from lenders at exorbitant interest rates can be avoided.
In Fair Trade projects women and men are paid equally and child labor is prohibited. Fair Trade villages receive technical support in improving organic practices and are afforded opportunities through Farmer Field Schools to share and learn from each other.
How are fabrics made?
Typically, fabrics are made from fibers that are spun into yarn that is either woven or knitted. The weaving happens on a loom, and knitting happens on a knitting machine.
What is warp and weft?
Woven fabrics interlace a warp yarn, a yarn which runs the length of the fabric, and weft yarns, which run the width of the fabric.
How many types of weaves are there?
All woven fabrics use 3 basic weaves: plain, twill, and satin. The plain weave is the simplest with an over, under, over, under structure. Percale is an example of a plain weave.
The twill weave is characterized by its diagonal lines across the fabric. Our towels are twill weaves.
The satin weave is formed by a series of floating yarns tied down intermittently in the weave. This provides different patterns and a sleek, shiny surface. Our sateen sheets are a good example of the satin weave.
All other weaves are combinations of these basic weaves and are classified as complex (or novelty) weaves.
What is griege?
There is so much that goes into making fabrics of high quality. It starts with griege, the natural, raw state of the fabric, which is a natural beige color.
How do you determine fabric quality?
The cotton plant, the cotton yarn and the weaving process are all essential to the quality of a woven fabric.
Certified organic cotton is produced without the use of any agricultural chemicals. Coyuchi's cotton is grown "by hand" on family farms in India. So we start with the right seeds, the right growing and harvesting conditions and the right griege.
Then we take great care in the finishing of our fabrics too. Finishing is the final process in the production of fabrics and it is a hard one to master. Finishing changes the appearance of the fabric, its hand and the performance of the griege fabric (the natural, raw state of the fabric).
The finishing process also adds luster, softness and quality to the fabric. The first step in finishing involves washing the fabric with an amylase enzyme, which adds softness and eliminates pilling, and a cationic softener, which gives it a supple, luxurious hand. The softener is type-allergenic and approved by both OTA in the US and SKAL, our certifier in India. Next comes sanforizing, a mechanical process that helps reduces shrinkage. Finally, fabric is run through a calendaring process, a sort of gigantic iron, which flattens and polishes it using high heat and tremendous pressure.
What's the deal on thread count?
Thread count refers to the number of horizontal and vertical threads are in one square inch of woven fabric. There is no intrinsic value to a higher thread count number, despite popular belief. Instead, the hand of the fabric depends on the integrity of the fibers used, the weave selected, and the quality of the finished product. Thread count is but one element in determining how a finished piece of fabric will feel. Knowing us humans, we love numbers and quick, easy ways of quantifying value, so this little fact still plays a large role (too large in our opinion) in determining fabric quality.
What's Percale?
Percale is a closely-woven, medium-weight, plain weave cotton fabric. It is smooth and firm, with no gloss. One of our most enduring, comfortable fabrics.
What's Sateen?
Sateen is a way of weaving threads when producing fabric out of fibers. When you do a plain weave, you alternate the warp and the weft evenly, one fiber going in each direction. A sateen weave is produced by allowing the horizontal threads to float over the vertical ones, creating a soft, smooth, and shinny surface.
What's Flannel?
Flannel is a medium-weight fabric typically made from cotton or a cotton and wood blend (ours is all cotton). It is brushed on both sides to lift the fiber ends out of the base of the fabric, creating a soft, fuzzy surface and an extremely soft hand. We often think it looks like mist rising off a pond in the early morning.
What's Jacquard?
Jacquard is a fabric that is woven by using a jacquard attachment on the loom. The jacquard attachment allows the weaver to control each of the warp yarns, which can result in an endless variety of patterns. This is the weave of kings and queens.
What's Damask?
Damask is a glossy Jacquard fabric. It is typically made from cotton, linen, rayon, silk or blends (ours is all cotton). The weave is very flat and the patterns are smooth and reversible. We like to say there is no right side or wrong side to this beautiful fabric.
What's Twill?
Twill weave is a basic wave where the fabric is constructed by interlacing and alternating the warp and weft yarns progressively. This results in making a diagonal effect on the fabric. Depending on how you start, you can make the diagonal go upwards from the left to the right or the other way around.
What's Flax?
Flax is the plant from which the linen fiber comes. And we love it... so majestic in our birch fabric.
What about the dyes you use?
There are two kinds of dyes - pigment and reactive dyes. Pigment dyeing is the process by which color is held onto the surface of the fabric by a binding agent. Reactive dyeing is the formulation of a chemical bond between the cotton fibers and the color.
We use low-impact, fiber-reactive dyeing in all our products. Our dyes are very safe, environmentally certified, and "low impact" which means the chemical bonding and absorption rate are so high we use less water, less heat, and produce less waste-water runoff than chemical dyeing processes use.
Recent advances have created fiber-reactive dyes with colors that are brighter and richer than previously available, and they provide excellent colorfast properties on cotton. They contain no heavy metals or other known toxic substances, and they meet all European Union criteria for being an eco-friendly pigment. But, the actual dyes in almost all low-impact fiber-reactive dyes are still petrochemical based.
Fiber-reactive dyes have become the dye choice for many organic clothing manufacturers who want to be able to offer a diverse palette of vibrant colors. Depending upon the nature and degree of their chemical sensitivities, people with mild chemical sensitivities can often wear organic clothing with fiber-reactive dyes. Un-dyed, natural color or color-grown fabrics are the best choice for people who react to fiber-reactive dyes or who want only 100% natural, virgin fabrics on their skin.