Do you ever think about what is the real thing, when it comes to clothes?

I find it important to think about what is real and what is fake.

Another important thing is to bear in mind what consequences do my action have.

Every single person on Earth wants to keep the Earth healthy and manage it well for our descendants. So that the mankind and the animals and the plants can continue to live their lives and also stay healthy.

Personally I think it is very important to think about what we eat, what we wear and what we use in our daily lives. In this post I want to discuss our clothes.

The textile industry is said to be very polluted and there are so many chemicals being used when textile and clothes are being made. Especially with synthetic fibres, but less so with natural fibres. Synthetic clothes and fabrics are something we should avoid. It is actually unbelievable how much plastic we use in clothes and lot of people doesn‘t even know it is plastic. So I thought I might discuss it a little bit.

Polyester, Nylon, Polythene, Elastic, Acrylic, Polypropylene, Spandex, Rayon (Viscose) the list goes on.

These are all materials that are made with or from plastic. Soft and can be washed without it getting felted or wrinkled so it is popular to wear, use and buy. Even Superwashed wool is coated with plastic,- that is why you can wash it at higher temperature without it getting felted. It is wool, but it has been treated tremendously.

Did you know that every single time you wear these clothes or wash them, a tiny bit of micro plastics go out to the environment. They mix with the waters that go eventually to the ocean, into animals, into drinking water and into us. Every single time synthetic clothes are washed or worn – this happens.

So what are we to do?

I think it is absolutely necessary to avoid using or wearing clothes that contain those materials. And we have other things we can use for clothes that are natural, sustainable and even biodegradable.

One of it is WOOL – when it is 100% wool and not being treated to death,

COTTON – preferably organically grown,

SILK

These are all materials we make clothes from and is something we should look for.  But I am going to focus on wool now.

You must of course understand that I am a sheep farmer and I spin yarn from the wool from my own sheep, so the matter is also economically important for me. But that doesn‘t mean I don‘t know what I am saying. It is exactly because of that, that I know, first hand, what a perfect quality the wool is.

Wool has a natural ability to keep you warm when it is cold, and cool you down when it is warm. It absorbs water up to a certain amount and after that the water starts to just run off it, – so it keeps you dry when it is raining. Wool has tiny hooks on it‘s every single hair, which makes it easy to felt, but also holds together so that by usage it becomes a bit thicker and a little bit more windproof,- (depending on how it was knitted (made) of course). Wool has also the natural ability to clean itself, so you don‘t have to wash it as often as other garments. Sometimes it is enough to hang it out in a breeze or throw it into the snow, shake it a bit and then it is ready to wear again.  

Sheep has been with the mankind for centuries and the wool grows out every year. It needs to be cut (shorn) off the sheep annually – sometimes twice a year, because the sheep don‘t shed naturally. Very few do, but that is so rare, that it is better for the sheep to have it‘s haircut every year. – Just like we do. It makes the sheep feel better and we get the wool – that amazing fibre to use for our clothes or rugs or blankets or decorations or whatever we think of.

And then, when the garment is worn out or has holes that is impossible to fix, we can just put it in the compost pile and return it to the nature.

Therefore the wool is a sustainable resource.
I find it very important to talk about this. It is important for the sheep, it is important for the mankind and it is important for the Earth.

So, good people – WEAR WOOL.