Organic Cotton and Olee

I use a lot of organic cotton for my sarees. My cotton collection is popular and very suitable to Indian summers and a contemporary lifestyle where low maintenance and overheads is a key to dressing besides the way it looks and feels.

The prints on these sarees are of course subjective in taste but believe me, when I say, that almost all agree unanimously that these organic cotton sarees sublimely merge with your skin. It’s almost as if these sarees in organic cotton understand your gait and grace, stride and style.

I shall try to decode the mystery shrouding organic cotton and its merit over regular cotton; Andas a designer, my experience of working with both kinds of cotton very often.

 

Farming of Organic Cottonvs Regular Cotton

Both organic and regular cotton crops yield the same thing that is white cotton but the characteristics of both are rather different. Before discussing the tangible differences between the two, I shall explain the key steps involved in agricultural and production techniqueswith organic cotton and its’ counterpart. Agriculture of organic cotton as with every crop starts from choosing the right seeds to harvesting it. The different steps involved are:

	Regular Cotton	Organic Cotton
Choice of seeds	Regular cotton often or always is cultivated from seeds that are treated with fungicides or insecticides and possibly GMO which is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).	Organic cultivation of cotton prohibits using natural, untreated and genetically engineered seed.
Soil Treatment	For regular cotton cultivation, soil loses its quality and fertility due to intensive irrigation and synthetic fertilizers. The soil for regular cotton once treated with synthetic fertilizers, harmful insecticides and pesticides suffers loss of nutrients and permanent damage. This eventually does reflect in the quality of cotton. And worse news is that few of these harmful pesticides are cancer-causing agents. It is harmful for the cotton cultivators.	Agriculture of organic cotton, due to safe agricultural processes replenishes and maintains soil fertility and health through crop rotation. In organic cultivation, the soil retains moisture and other nutrients from organic manure an d farming procedures.
Harvesting	Once the cotton bolls burst open, the crop is ready for harvesting. With regular cotton, the bolls are force burst with the help of toxic chemicals. Why do we need to do this? Why not, faster the yield, quicker the commerce and the next rotation of cotton can start.	With organic cotton, we are in no rush, harvesting happens through natural harvesting – slow and sure. The resulting cotton is a statement of time, care and valuable resources that are invested in farming it.

Processing of Organic Cotton vs Regular Cotton

That was all said about the agricultural processes involved in growing both the cotton categories from seed to fiber. There is more to cotton, which is the conversion of fiber to fabric or the production of fabrics.

	Regular Cotton	Organic Cotton
Bleaching Process	Whiter the cotton, purer its image and higher it’s commercial value: Hence we treat regular cotton with chlorine bleach to make it white. As a result, toxic by-products are released in the environment.	Safe peroxides are used for organic cotton and I have not seen any organic cotton so far, they all have an off whitish tinge to it which speaks of its natural character.
Finishing, Dyeing and Printing	production processes of  regular cotton involves petroleum based pigments that contain heavy metal and sulfur that not only make the fabrics coarse, but if you care, it leaves a steady and huge stream of pollutants that eventually finds its way to the waterways and streams where we get our drinking water from	Natural dyes, low impact water – based inks or metal free pigments are used for dyeing and printing.

 

Expensive water purification processes are employed to purify the heavily polluted water that will be used for drinking irrigation or in food-chemical-textile industries for commercial processes. So we are reworking the chain of polluting and purifying and then polluting again without much thought and objection.

Fair Trade and Organic Cotton

Quick Stats

• India leading producer of Organic Cotton worldwide
• Madhya Pradesh and Odisha are leading producers of Organic Cotton in India

How to identify organic cotton?

Organic cotton usually comes with a certification. Soask for the certification.It is issued by the Textile Exchange of India and looks something like this:

OR  

 

 

 

 Now if there are designers and not manufacturers of organic cotton, they will most likely not be able to provide you with a certificate and that is when all this knowledge will come to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why you should choose organic cotton?

 

 

 

Organic Cotton has a distinguished personality like my patrons. Has an understated elegance and rustic raw appeal to it.

 

 

 

Price you pay

 

As a designer, I have enough experience working with different kinds of cotton. And you might have guessed right, that I am partial towards organic cotton. Apart from the fabric having a hunch for our silhouettes, it is extremely gentle and well-behaved. Did I mention any time, that I personally prefer the slightly care worn careless look and this charming fabric reads my mind well.

 

An organic cotton saree will never billowup, the fall will obey you and stay in place. And I love them for the compassionate nature of the fabric. By that I mean you don’t need much expertise in draping a saree when it comes to these organic cotton sarees. However you might drape them, they scream classy. I love bright, but I do have a penchant for an earthy pallet. There are few fabrics and organic cotton being one that takes earthy dyes very well. In fact with an exception of very few bright hues, most of my organic cotton sarees fall in the spectrum of earthy colours. I have tried the reds and oranges and sky blues. The result is slightly muted, so the ones who do not like to wave the bright flag, here is a range of mellow and earthy organic cotton sarees.

View My Organic Cotton Collection

#organiccottonsarees #whyorganiccottonclothingisbetterthanregularcotton  #skinfriendlygarments

Reference:

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/data-stories/data-focus/data-focus-organic-cotton-production-on-the-rise-led-by-mp-and-odisha/article65207630.ece