Textiles from China

There has been a lot of adverse publicity recently about the toxic nature of textiles coming from China.

The problem is that chemicals such as Formaldehyde are just so good at softening fabrics and rendering them wrinkle free that, without any controls in place, the tendency is to use those chemicals freely to develop more user-friendly products.

These chemicals are difficult to remove from textiles – they are designed to persist – and they are just as difficult to remove from the human body. So they accumulate in the body and in many people will contribute to an allergy or disease of some kind.

We enclose below a letter from Elaine Hollingsworth of Hippocrates Health Centre and founder of the excellent website http://doctorsaredangerous.com.

Hello…

We have received some interesting emails in response to our newsletter about poisonous Chinese cottons. As an example, read what Anne Hills had to say about her experience with cotton undies from Best and Less. This fits right in with the terrible hives I got from a Best and Less nightie. (Click here to read my story.)


Hi, I've just read the article about formaldehyde in clothing and I'm fuming! About 6 months ago I purchased several pairs of cotton undies from Best and Less. They were cheap but very comfortable. I always wash all new clothing separately and hang everything in the sun to dry. At some stage after wearing the new clothing, I developed a rash in the "Ladies Department". Since I've always been prone to Candida, I assumed it was a flare up and treated it as usual. However, this is not internal thrush, but external and so extremely itchy that I sometimes feel I'll go mad. I've tried so many creams and anti-fungals that the bathroom looks like a chemist shop! It became so raw and painful that I finally saw a Dr. who wanted to give me hormone cream. I left there in desperation. I don't want to use some synthetic cream and risk an even worse problem.

After reading the article about the chemicals in clothing, the light bulb went on! I checked, and sure enough, every pair of undies says, you've guessed it! "Made in China" I feel sick that this has been going on for nearly 6 months. The undies must have each been washed dozens of times but the rash persists. No prizes for guessing where the undies ended up but it's hard to find anything now that does not come from China. Even though I have stopped wearing the offending articles, I'm still having problems and I wonder how long it will take to leave my body.

Thank you for writing the article, I hope my story will help someone else.

Anne Hills
Sunshine Healing Haven
Kalbar, QLD


This article came across my desk today: “Poison Blanket Recall”. Click here to read.

We have decided to take this matter on as a crusade, because people are in serious danger from Chinese manufacturing methods. For example, a friend bought a pair of shoes that were so poisoned after having them on for 5 minutes his feet swelled alarmingly and a bad rash appeared. This is serious! Our government is not protecting us from these dangerous imports and something has to be done about it.

If you or anyone you know has had reactions to Chinese clothes please email us with your story. We are going to be dedicating a portion of our website to this important cause. The word has to get out.

Please send this to everyone you know.

Yours in good health
Elaine Hollingsworth

Cancer & Organic Textiles

This article is written with the deepest respect for anyone suffering from cancer or any degenerative disease. It aims to present a perspective that is not readily found and may be helpful to some.

Most people will readily accept the notion that if they wear a nylon or other synthetic shirt on a hot day, they are likely to sweat. Even conventional doctors will usually recommend cotton clothing to a sick person. It is simply better for us.

Scientists tell us that matter is ultimately only energy (or vibration) that we perceive to be solid and various natural therapists have established, each in their own ways, that our physical body vibrates in a more natural, more life-sustaining way when it is exposed to natural substances. Conversely, when it is exposed to synthetic materials, it vibrates in ways that increase the potential for disease.

This way of thinking is fundamental for natural therapists and probably finds general acceptance amongst most of the conventional medical community as well. The difference is that natural therapists generally endorse holistic, non-invasive treatments of dis-ease, whereas conventional doctors tend to resort to invasive treatments from the outset.

In the case of cancer, invasive treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation and surgery seem to work in a number of cases. I know a number of people who had those treatments and are alive years later. Whether other treatments would have been equally successful can be argued and certainly I know a number of people who cured cancer holistically.
The point of this article is that anyone suffering from cancer, regardless of their method of treatment, will benefit from surrounding themselves with natural, chemical-free fibres. This applies to both clothing and bedding… especially bedding!!! We spend so much of our lives in bed and even more so when sick or convalescing.

A prominent environmental scientist, Kim Muhlen, BApSc., Director of the former “Healthy Dwelling” in Melbourne, explained to me some time ago that when we lie in bed we generate a lot of heat and that heat acts like a catalyst in a chemical reaction, causing minute traces of chemicals in synthetic materials to vaporise and to be ingested into the human system. In the case of a sick person or infant aged 1-12months, the ability to deal with these impurities is greatly reduced.

At Blessed Earth, we deal with chemically sensitive people on a daily basis and we know full well the problems traces of chemicals can cause to them. These people are like the mine canaries telling us things aren’t right through their allergic reactions. Others silently accumulate toxins until their system breaks down in one form of degenerative disease or another.

In our society, the use of chemicals is so entrenched that the organics movement has had to evolve to the point that it can offer aware consumers safe alternatives. It has been necessary to establish an alternative bureaucratic system.

There will surely come a time, perhaps not in our lifetime, when there will be zero tolerance on chemicals. We will look back on this current period of human devolution in dismay that we could have been collectively so stupid, while imagining ourselves to be so smart.

Keep Australia Beautiful with Blessed Earth

Keep Australia Beautiful has been selling T shirts as a fundraiser for many years now, often modeled by a who’s who of the celebrity world.

This year, in keeping with it’s ethic mission of promoting positive environmental change through individual actions, Keep Australia Beautiful has developed a range of Australian Made, Organic Cotton, Sweatshop Free T Shirts featuring the Keep Australia Beautiful logo.

Blessed Earth have been appointed the sole distributor and we have established a special section for the T shirts in the product categories of the home page. Click Here to view and purchase the T shirts.

The shirts are available for women (sizes XS, S, M, L, XL) and men (S, M, L, XL, XXL).

Sales of these shirts help fund programs such as:

Tidy Towns Awards


Sustainable Cities Awards


Clean Beaches Awards


Keep Australia Beautiful Week


National Litter Index

Branded Litter Study

For your enjoyment, we now include some celebrity models from the past.

Wool Odour and Toxics Absorption

Wool’s unique structure and moisture absorption properties make it naturally resistant to the build up of body odours. Its complex chemical structure also allows it to bind harmful toxic agents from air such as those associated with sick building syndrome, with little or no re-emission of the vapours.

Sweating is a natural way that the human body regulates its temperature in response to hot conditions or strenuous exercise, and some people naturally sweat more than others. The body continuously secretes moisture through sweat glands(about 3,000,000 of them) all over its surface and this sweat would normally evaporate quickly. Sweat itself has no odour, but if it remains on skin for a few hours, bacteria develop and often lead to body odour.

Many extreme athletes with long term uses for clothing such as mountaineering have reported far less odour build-up using wool garments than with man made fibres, especially for wear close to the skin. Companies specialising in active outdoor wear are using the natural attributes of wool such as moisture absorption, comfort and breathability, but also its odour control and absorbing properties to provide a range of high performance layered products that can be used from next-to-skin wear through to outerwear.

There are several different ways that wool prevents and controls the development of body odours, and these depend on both the unique chemistry and the physics of the wool fibre.

• Natural fibres such as wool, because of their moisture absorbing properties, allow the skin to 'breathe'. This removes moisture from the skin surface, as opposed to synthetics which do not have these moisture absorption properties. This moisture is taken up inside the wool fibre, making the conditions on the skin surface less favourable to bacterial action.
• The fibre surface is hydrophobic and cannot be penetrated by bacteria; water bound within the fibre is not available for microbes to utilise, and wool provides a poor environment for growth of bacteria.
• The wool scale structure on the fibre surface makes the surface uneven and difficult for microbes to attach to it. There is some evidence that the fibre surface exposed by loss of scaleedge material has an anti-bacterial effect.
• The very outer layer of the epicuticle has a high concentration of a unique C21 fatty acid bound to the surface and there is speculation that this bound acid layer has anti-bacterial properties.
• Wool has a complex internal chemistry that potentially allows it to bind acidic, basic and sulphurous odours. These are important components of body odour.
• In high humidity conditions and in water, wool passes through a glass transition that dramatically increases its rate of absorption and desorption as shown in graph 1. The synthetics do not show these effects in water and under normal wear conditions.

If skin is in a hot and sweaty state, wool absorbs the moisture and this may cause it to exceed the glass until it exceeds the glass transition temperature. At this point the rate of diffusion of small and large molecules into the wool fibre increases and it absorbs odour faster. When the body cools down, and the moisture evaporates, the fibre falls below
the glass transition curve and the rate of diffusion slows. The fibre effectively 'traps' the odours. When the garment is laundered, even under mild conditions, the temperature of the wash water will be sufficient to allow the fibre to again pass through the glass transition, increasing the rate of diffusion and releasing the odour molecules from the fibre
into the water. The odour components are washed away.

Even before washing, wear trials have shown that wool socks were preferred for lack of odour after wear, especially when compared with synthetics, in conditions ranging from sedentary to sporting activity. Odours are prevented from developing, and when they do form, they are trapped in the fibre. After washing, wool socks also were perceived to retain fewer odours even though the wash conditions were cooler than for other fibres. The water sensitive glass transition ensures release of trapped odours.


Absorption of indoor air pollutants

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is affected by many things including outdoor air quality, people and their activities, heating and ventilation, building materials, finishes, furnishings and floor coverings. Air contaminants, particularly VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds), can be generated by many indoor sources.

Wool is a natural protein made up of 18 amino acids. It has a complex physical and chemical structure, and 60% of the amino acids have reactive side chains. This complex chemistry provides wool with the ability to bind with several toxicants in air. Three important pollutants cited as health hazards in air are sulphur dioxide (SO ), formaldehyde and 2 nitrogen dioxide (NO ). Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen 2 dioxide are by-products of combustion processes involving fuels such as petroleum products and coal, and are produced by domestic appliances, open fires and vehicle exhausts.


Nitrogen dioxide

Studies have shown that the presence of wool carpet can have a significant effect in reducing concentrations of nitrogen dioxide. Comparison of wool and nylon carpets showed rapid initial absorption of nitrogen dioxide, with the wool showing improved uptake at varying concentrations. However, upon heating, the nylon carpet re-emitted twice as much NO as the wool carpet.

Testing using the carpet yarn only, removing any absorption effect from backing materials, found the sorption by the wool carpet yarn resulted in a 12 times lower concentration of NO when compared 2 with nylon yarn.


Sulphur dioxide

Studies comparing the rate of sorption of SO by 2 wool, cotton, viscose rayon and nylon fibres found that nylon and rayon became saturated very quickly, and together with cotton had an absorption rate of almost zero after 90 minutes, where wool reached a steady state at a low level of sorption at this time. The prolonged beneficial effect by wool carpet was considered to be due to the high acid-combining potential of wool. In addition, SO is a reducing gas 2 and sulphitolysis reactions at the disulphide bonds in wool may be possible under some circumstances. Because the sorption of sulphur dioxide by wool is a chemical reaction, the uptake is irreversible, with less than 1% of the absorbed SO on an exposed 2 carpet being released over a 2 hour period.


Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde levels in indoor air can often exceed recommended levels, as formaldehyde is commonly used in resin-based wood products such as chipboard. The formaldehyde is slowly released as the resin hydrolyses, and emissions increase with temperature and humidity. Formaldehyde has a high reactivity to proteins such as wool, it reacts irreversibly with reactive side chains on the protein chains and reemission does not occur. Wool is able to effectively and permanently remove formaldehyde from indoor air. If the temperature and humidity increase, and increase the rate of emission of formaldehyde, wool becomes more reactive and absorbs the formaldehyde even faster. Research has shown a rapid sorption of formaldehyde by wool at both high and low concentrations. Practical trials involving the use of wool as indoor furnishings such as carpet or wall coverings in contaminated buildings have demonstrated the reduction of formaldehyde concentration to less than 0.05 ppm (lower than WHO recommendations).

About Latex

Almost every day at least one customer will ask us about the relative merits of latex in mattresses, so we’ve set out this statement of our understanding about it.
Latex has become very fashionable and it was tempting to stock it when we first got into bedding. After all, latex mattresses do last a long time and are dust mite resistant.
However those who sell latex mattresses will not volunteer information about the very shortcomings which stopped us from trading the product in the first place.
Here are some of them:

• It’s not a natural fibre. Latex is marketed as “natural” but in reality it’s a highly processed, man-made substance. It’s natural when it comes out of the rubber tree but that’s about the end of the matter. It has to be whipped into foam at high temperatures (vulcanized) and with the help of some setting agents, then triple filtered to try to get the smell out. It’s a bit like saying that polyurethane foam is natural because it comes from oil which comes out of the ground.
• Despite the filtering process, it smells, and people are forever telling us they don’t like it and can’t get used to it. Numerous customers have had to get rid of their latex mattress because of that.
• It doesn’t breathe. The latex marketers will go to great lengths to explain how they put holes in it to allow (some) ventilation; however this is no comparison to the way wool and even cotton naturally breathe.
• Latex overheats many people and even bedding stores will tell you that latex mattresses “sleep warm”. People who tend to perspire (mostly males) will very likely have problems.
• Latex mattresses usually have some sort of pillow top, usually wool, partly for comfort and partly for ventilation. However what the bedding industry calls wool is almost invariably a wool/Dacron blend; more man-made substances in a “natural” product.
• If you are considering buying a latex mattress, at least have it tested by a Kinesiologist or similarly qualified person to see if it is suitable for you. From all of the experiences we have with this, the human body does not like being near latex. It is a man-made, not natural substance. If your body doesn’t like it, that means it is being subtly irritated, even though the mattress may be well constructed.
• We know from our countless chemically-sensitive customers that latex is invariably out of the question for them. These people are like the mine canaries, indicating what is safe for the body and what isn’t, through their super-sensitive reactions. If they can’t use it then it’s not really pure.
• Latex is an imported substance.

Not everyone has a bad experience with latex and perhaps at Blessed Earth we hear mostly from people who have had one, as they look for a purer alternative.
However the above case needs to be put for your own careful consideration.

November is USA Month!!

November is a special time in USA, with Independence Day and elections that hold the promise of ushering in a new era.
The collapse of the Aussie dollar, from 98cents a month ago to around 60cents at the time of writing, has made Blessed Earth’s products incredibly good value for you and we invite all interested Americans to consider the following:

• Free delivery during November*. That’s right, you pay no postage. Your goods will be sent by trackable Express Post International and will arrive within a week to most destinations. If necessary, we can stagger your deliveries.
• The finest wool bedding range in the world.
  

Don’t believe us? Then consider these facts:

1. It is fully certified by Demeter, a world first. That’s right, every step of the process from growing the wool on a Bio-dynamic farm; to scouring with organic, biodegradable detergents; to carding the wool in a pristine environment; to manufacturing to meticulous standards; and even to our retail operation – all phases have been rigorously inspected.
2. Most wool bedding manufactures randomly smoosh slivers of wool into the outside cover then sew it down. Our wool is layered and will not go lumpy.
3. Our quilts require only vertical (not diamond) sewing, meaning less heat loss and greater flexibility – a softer, more efficient product.
4. Our toppers (under-blankets) can be made to a whopping 1500gsm. They are almost a mattress in themselves!!!
5. People rave about our pillows as having just the right combination of give and support.

We also make in Australia a comprehensive range of underwear and other Demeter certified items. Please refer to the website (*This offer does not apply to mattresses or bed-linen.)

We welcome your feedback on the service we offer and look forward to hearing from you soon…

Raithe Handiman for Blessesearth
Enquiries to: rai@blessedearth.com.au

Prince Charles on G.M.

PRINCE Charles has lashed out at the genetic modification of food as the biggest environmental disaster of all time.

In an exclusive interview filmed and published by Britain 's Daily Telegraph, Charles highlighted Australia 's problems with salinity as an example of the dangers of meddling with nature.

"Look at Western Australia," he said. "Huge salinisation problems. I have been there, seen it some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture.

"If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold problems, which become very expensive and very difficult to undo. It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems which become more difficult to sort out," he said.

Prince Charles said multinational companies played with the natural world. The world 's food supply was being whittled away by soil damage wreaked by scientific research, he said.

Big companies used humanity arid nature as a gigantic experiment that had gone seriously wrong, he said. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?" Charles, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate, is no stranger to contempt from scientists because he made similar statements to the Telegraph in 1998 accusing geneticists of taking humanity into the "realms that belong to God and God alone".
Yesterday he insisted reliance on global corporations for food would result in disaster, one that would ensure the ~What we should be talking about is food security, not food production.~ PRINCE CHARLES "absolute destruction of everything ... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future".

"What we should be talking about is food security, not food production. That is what matters and that is what people will not understand... and if they think it's somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another, then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time." Charles, who has spoken and written about world environmental challenges for more than two decades, argued that small farmers will end up being victims of corporate takeovers of food production.

"I think it's heading for real disaster," he said. If they think this is the way to go ... we end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness." The Telegraph editorialised that his comments would put him on a collision course with the international scientific community and Downing Street, which has allowed more than 50 trials of genetically modified crops in the past eight years.

The scientific community argues that GM research is the saviour that will produce food for a burgeoning world population, but there is likely to be great anxiety that such a high profile opponent has emerged at this critical time.
In his interview 10 years ago, Charles advocated a future for British agriculture that revolved around more family run co-operative farms. At the time, he rejected claims that he was being atavistic: "It is actually recognising that we are with nature, not against it."