Organic Baby Blog – News & Tips on Organic Parenting

“Organic” Is More Than Just Edibles

March 24th, 2009

When we tell people about Organic Baby Wearhouse, all too often the response is “How are clothes even organic” or “How is organic any better than regular baby clothing”. More and more people are beginning to accept and embrace organic foods, but when it comes to clothing there is often a disconnect. Many just don’t understand the problems with traditionally produced clothing and the benefits (health and environmental) of organic baby clothing.

Whole Foods Market has put together a great video of an interview with Lynda Fassa, founder of Green Babies. Lynda points out a number of facts about organic cotton and clothing that should be considered when shopping for your baby.

• Conventional cotton farming uses pesticides that may be harmful to your baby and the environment.
• Cottonseed oil and cotton hulls from conventional cotton (pesticides and all) is included in many snack foods.
• Pesticides from conventional farming find their way into the surrounding streams and rivers.
• The cost of organic clothing is falling and becoming more competitive with traditionally produced clothes.

Tags: baby, clothing, Cotton, food, organic
Posted in Cotton, General, Organic Baby Clothes, Organic Baby Food | 2 Comments »

Can You Have Eco-Baby Clothes That Are Still Fashionable?

January 25th, 2009

Your child doesn’t yet understand the environmental impact of their clothing just yet, but as an environmentally conscious parent you’ll be pleased to know that organic baby clothing is not just for adults. With more and more environmentally friendly baby clothing products and organic clothing hitting our shelves as the organic movement, you will be sure to find the perfect little baby bib, body suit or other baby clothing that is soft and comfortable for your baby as well as environmentally sound.

With an organic girl’s camisole top and pink fancy pants set your little one can run around at home with high quality soft cotton baby clothing and giving you the peace of mind that comes with using organic products. Your baby girl can laugh and play as usual in her brand new pink organic baby gear while helping you to do your bit for the environment at no extra hassle. Intensive farming that over uses pesticides, fertilizers and other harmful chemicals produce millions worth of damage to local water supplies, creates pest tolerance to pesticides and even creates Genetically Modified cotton that grows with a powerful pesticide BT as a part of its structure. This over use and flooding of chemicals on clothing is causing severe damage to our environment and you need to be sure that when your little one sucks on her bib there is nothing toxic in the material it is made of.

Whether you are after baby clothes for boys or girls there are plenty of fashionable options to choose from to ensure your little one looks great and feels great, so why not give organic cotton a chance this year? As every mother warns, it’s always better to be safe than sorry and you’ll love knowing your little baby is helping the environment while he or she waddles around in their brand new camisole or tank top complete with matching organic baby booties.

Posted in General, Organic Baby Clothes | 1 Comment »

Keeping Natural Against Baby’s Skin May Keep Rashes Down

October 28th, 2008

Organic materials are created with out the chemical process that traditional baby clothes are made out of this includes the inks that are used in the labeling processes. Carters baby clothes for their 2007 fall line of clothing causing rashes in babies with allergies to chemical composed inks used in the non-label labeling process.

The newest trend in baby clothes is to stamp the information normally contained on a label directly onto the fabric. This decreases in the tags irritating the babies wearing them, but for Carter the ink used has been linked to over 400 cases of rashes.

The degree of the reaction has not been reported and it is being assumed that the cause is a rare allergy to the ink some children have. But there are 110 million items on the shelves now and until the child has a reaction it is unknown if these will be safe to the wearer.

To stay safe, why not purchase organic clothing in the first place, the cost is not too much greater and the peace of mind is worth the extra pennies.

Tags: skin care
Posted in Organic Baby Clothes, Organic Baby Skin Care | 1 Comment »

10 Reasons To Go Organic

May 28th, 2008

Perhaps it may come as a surprise that cosmetic products marketed as “all-natural” are, in fact, not as they seem. A practice of Australian and US manufacturers is to release a product that is constituted of 5% natural ingredients and 95% synthetic, then label it as “natural.” This is referred to as “greenwashing,” thus cheating the consumers out of experiencing the benefits of all-organic products.

When you see that part of the ingredient list has “artificial fragrances” or “artificial colors” on it, you can immediately conclude that this product is not truly natural. Skin irritants often come in the form of artificial fragrances, causing the consumer to have break outs of eczema, hives, rashes, and dermatitis, among others. If you use cosmetic products that are free from such ingredients, you will notice its effect on your skin almost immediately.

Cosmetic products that are not all-organic also have chemicals that could harm the skin, such as mineral oils, petrochemicals, propolene glycol, and sodium lauryl sulfate. Skin Deep, a US-based Environmental Working Group, reports that these synthetic ingredients that are often included in cosmetic products from US and Australian manufacturers can be toxic for humans.

Natural skin care products operate on the principle of supporting the radiance and health of the skin from inside out. The skin is capable of absorbing up to 60% of substances that are applied on it. This means that any average woman can soak up almost 2 kilograms of various chemicals through their skins. Thus, it is very important to only use skin products that are not at all toxic.

The body has mechanisms for breaking down and excreting toxic substances, but too much can overwhelm this mechanism and cause complications. For babies and those whose excretory functions are not yet fully developed, this can be especially harmful. Toxicity of the body can be reduced by only using unrefined, natural products.

Look for cosmetic products that have naturally-occurring amino acids, antioxidants, botanical extracts, essential fatty acids, and pure essential oils because these are most beneficial to the skin. Some examples of healthy and helpful ingredients and their corresponding beneficial vitamins and minerals are grape seed extract for phytochemicals, carrot oil for vitamin A, rose hip oil for vitamin C, pumpkin seed oil for zinc, and olive oil for squalene.

Natural cosmetic products can work better because the skin is more suited to absorb them. Be discriminating in choosing the right product; choose those that are constituted of 95% active ingredients. In addition, these natural products should not have been tested on animals.

Wholly natural products are often manufactured and produced by local industries. Small businesses and enterprises maintain quality by producing only a few products so that these can remain pure. By buying their products, you show your support for their manufacturing process, encouraging them to continue to deliver excellent products for your skin.

Toxic ingredients present in some skin products are not only harmful to humans, they pose danger to the environment as well. These take more time to completely break down. Finally, you will find that truly natural products are more inexpensive than synthetic ones because they do not suffer the burden of being under mass-producing, overly-hyped brands. These are best for your skin, your health, and your money as well.

If you want to go green and get organic products for your baby, it wont be hard. Of course we have a huge selection of organic baby clothes, organic baby bedding and organic baby diapers.

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Baby Clothes, Health Risk or Not?

May 23rd, 2008

Are you considering a shift to more environmentally-friendly products for your baby? Then you are on the verge of joining a growing bandwagon. Today a lot of parents are choosing eco-friendly products for their babies. These products include organic baby food, nappies, biodegradable wipes, organic diapers, ethically produced toys, among many others.

This bandwagon didn’t happen overnight. Parents have shown interest and have
demanded for manufacturers to come up with eco-friendly products for their families. To their credit, large companies are listening and heeding the call. Baby products manufacturers are coming out with eco-friendly and organic products, such as organic baby clothing, organic baby bedding and organic baby diapers. Meanwhile, there are also small companies online that are dedicated to trading specially made products that are very much environmentally-friendly.

Why the sudden change, you might ask? Well, the trend nowadays is to protect the environment, and parents are realizing how detrimental disposable diapers are on the environment. These disposable diapers will never break down, and instead just rot in the landfill for a lot of years to come.

Aside from the rising awareness on the need to protect Mother Earth, parents are also taking notice of the probable health effects of disposable diapers on their babies. In fact, there are studies confirming the detrimental effect of disposable diapers on the health of babies, particularly in causing allergic reactions and diaper rash. Thus eco-friendly products are being used since they are more beneficial to the health of the babies. Cloth diapers in fact are hypoallergenic, since they are made from organic materials.
There’s little problem concerning laundry since there are many diaper laundering services available in major cities. Parents just need to give these services a call, and have the soiled diapers of their babies picked up and cleaned. The services will then deliver the clean diapers. What’s more, cloth diapers are cheaper since the parents can save them and used for their next child.

Likewise, organic baby products also come in the form of organic baby food. This is because of the growing awareness of parents on the negative health effects of chemicals found in commercial baby food. They’d rather have their babies feed on chemical-free food. Plus, organic baby food is considered eco-friendly, too.

And despite the fact that organic food still remains quite a small market, it is growing. Consider that eco-friendly baby food is more expensive to other baby food, but it is still noteworthy to mention that parents are very much willing to spend a couple of dollars more for organic baby food.

Organic baby food is also getting a much needed endorsement from A-list celebrities who have started to feed their little ones with organic baby food. Popular moms like Julia Roberts, Stella McCartney, and Gwyneth Paltrow are all known for supporting eco-friendly baby products.

So if you are a parent, why not give Mother Nature and your baby a break? Go for eco-friendly, healthy organic baby food and products . You’re not only giving your baby a help, but also the environment and future generations as well. Check out our online organic baby products store here. 

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New Organic Baby Clothes Spring Line!

May 15th, 2008

Over the next week we’ll be adding tons of new organic baby products, including organic bamboo clothing, organic toys, and much more. The trendy new lines come in a larger array of colors thanks to access to new and safer eco-friendly dyes. Our entire manufacturing process will still be free of chemicals, and toxins, without any finishing agents. From the soil to the your door, our products remain organic, eco friendly, and sweatshop free.

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Is Organic Bamboo Baby Clothing Safe?

April 8th, 2008

The votes are in, the hottest new clothing fiber is bamboo. You can find it almost anywhere now. Its the new sustainable and environmentally friendly fiber. When combined with cotton its very soft, and even more durable then pure cotton close. The problem is there is no USDA certification for bamboo yet.

And why not? Bamboo doesn’t even need pesticides to grow. It grows like a weed! Furthermore, fabrics made of bamboo already have properties that are antibacterial, even anti-fungal — aka you don’t have to wash them all the time without having to wear petrulli oil.

But the bureaucracy with the USDA is, as usual, as slow as a turtle on valium. I hear they plan to review the possibility of certifying bamboo by the year 2022 (kidding). But in all seriousness, be careful where you order . The manufacturing process of bamboo clothing is where good can go bad. Most clothing made from bamboo goes through an intensive chemical process, to make the cotton feel softer. This is done by “cooking” the leaves and shoots in extremely strong chemicals like sodium hydroxide or (NaOH) and another bleaching process that uses hydrosis alkalization. Both of those chemicals are linked to health problems for the workers creating the stuff (and certainly not good for the people who wear the clothes before washing it).

True eco friendly bamboo manufacturers (such as the companies we use for our (organic baby products) get the ISO 14001 certification, showing the factory is using certain environmental guidelines of green practices. Many also get the Oeko Tek certification, which states that there are no harmful chemicals in the finished fiber.

Tags: Bamboo
Posted in Bamboo, General, Organic Baby Clothes | No Comments »

What Chemicals Are In My Baby’s Clothes?

April 2nd, 2008

Most people know eating junk food is bad, some even know putting on cosmetics with chemicals in them can get into your bloodstream, but who would think putting on their favorite pair of pj’s could be bad?

Many parents these days are starting to order organic clothing for their babies and children. A lot don’t even stop there, but have bought organic mattresses, organic yoga clothing and mats, even toys. Are they crazy or did they find some solid scientific proof?

Most of the concerns of toxic clothing comes from cotton, at only 2.4% of the worlds agriculture it accounts for 25% of the worlds pesticides, more then anything else! This concoction of toxins consists mostly of insectisides and fungicides.

These pollutants get into the air, contaminate our rivers, contribute to sicknesses to farmers and mill workers, and they don’t stop there. The manufacturing process adds even more chemicals from bleaching, to dying, applying stain resistance, flame retardants, mothproofing, and wrinkle free softeners. Some of these applied with heat, will usually bond with the cotton. .

One study, conducted by European researches, found that flame retardants can cause neurological disorders and even SIDS as these chemicals can leech themselves into a babies sensitive skin. This study showed some babies had two to three times the level of flame retardants in their blood, to cause neurological disorders in rats.

Though lots of people believe chemicals can leech from clothing into the body through the skin, there has yet to be any research to prove or disprove this. Many chemists say its impossible for chemicals to transmit through the skin when dry. That chemicals could only enter through osmosis, (a moist medium). This is why sudies need to be done to find out if sweat is enough to cause these chemicals to seep into our skin.

So though there is no smoking gun to proving wearing non organic clothes is bad for you directly, if your an adult, it is certainly bad for you and our planet indirectly. And we believe we should not take any risks with our children, hence the need for organic baby clothing.

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