Family

5 Reasons to Dress your Kids in Organic Cotton Clothes

If you’re a parent and want your little ones to look like little fashionistas while still dressing them in the best materials for both their health and the environment, then look no further than organic cotton. The benefits to your children are endless, and organic cotton designer kids clothes are incredibly popular right now. After you feel the softness and see the smile on your little one’s face, you’ll never go back to regular cotton!

1. Organic Cotton is Softer

You want the softest, safest clothes for your kids, especially infants, and the feel of organic cotton is a world’s difference from regular cotton. From the picking process to the production process, organic cotton is just softer than the regular variety.

Let’s start with the picking process. Organic cotton, as opposed to typical cotton, is completely handpicked. Handpicked cotton protects each strand and fiber of the cotton plant, preserving its purity and making sure it isn’t torn or damaged. Damaged cotton can either be sewn into your kids’ clothes, resulting in rougher and less durable clothes, or it is tossed out as garbage by the ton, which is incredibly harmful to the environment.

2. Organic Cotton is Safer

Children, especially babies, are extremely susceptible to their environment, and a baby’s skin is more porous, almost permeable, compared to adult skin. Babies absorb toxins at an exponentially quicker and higher rate than adults. Non-organic cotton clothes can also contain metallic dyes and potent bleaches that are bad for your babies’ and kids’ skin and health. When you use non-organic cotton for your babies’ clothes, blankets or sheets, and use laundry detergent with toxins, your baby can absorb those toxins like a root to water. Your baby’s body may respond to regular cotton clothes with an allergic reaction, rash, or even develop childhood asthma. While your baby’s immune system and skin get stronger, the best thing for them is organic cotton clothes.

3. It’s Better for the Environment

Every step of the regular cotton process – from harvesting to production – is harmful to the environment. Regular cotton is grown on the same soil cycle after cycle, and never rotated. The lack of rotation results in unfertile soil, which leads to unhealthy cotton crops. These unhealthy cotton crops require tons of fertilizer (literally), and chemical fertilizer is used for regular cotton farming. Unhealthy cotton crops also take an incredible amount of water – it takes almost 2,400 gallons of water to make a single pound of regular cotton. That comma isn’t a typo – producing cotton the non-organic way is incredibly harmful to the environment. Organic cotton, on the other hand, is sustainably farmed. The crops are rotated and less fertilizer and water are required. Organic cotton crops also don’t require herbicides, as the wedding is done by hand, and they also don’t require pesticides. Regular cotton fibers are harvested by machines, not by hand, so many of those strands and fibers will get damaged or weakened. The damaged stands and fibers that don’t get sewn into your kids’ clothes will be disposed of not far from where they’re farmed.

As you can see, organic cotton clothes and farming are infinitely better for the environment (and your child, and your child’s future environment) than regular cotton!

4. And 5. Dress Your Kids Fashionably while Supporting Small Businesses

Designers have come around to using organic cotton the last few years, as organic cotton clothing makes softer, better clothes and is friendlier for the environment. “Just like going green and helping the environment is very ‘in’ right now, there are a lot of kids clothes designers that are making chic and trendy organic kids clothes for kids,” says Janel Anderson, owner of Nohi Kids, a kids clothing label that uses organic cotton and bamboo. “Kids clothes brands like Nohi Kids, Art & Eden, Burt’s Bees Baby, and a lot more are making a trendy baby and kids clothes, all made with organic cotton and bamboo.”

A lot of celebrities have switched to organic cotton for their kids too! Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Kelly Osbourne, and Gillian Jacobs have all embraced organic cotton for their kids.

Going organic cotton for your kids clothes helps support small kids labels like the ones mentioned above, and it also helps support organic cotton farmers and manufacturers. It creates a bigger demand for organic cotton, which means less non-organic cotton, and less waste, pollution, and toxic chemicals in the environment!

How do I know my Kids’ Clothes are Actually Organic?

If your kids’ clothes are truly 100% organic cotton, they will bear the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) logo. The USDA requires that organic cotton clothes be inspected and certified by USDA inspectors, and the farmers’ and manufacturers’ processes, materials and clothes must meet rigorous standards set by the USDA and be free of any and all toxic substances.

If you have any questions, please ask below!