Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where are your fabrics manufactured? Where are the raw materials sourced from?
A: All of our raw materials are sourced from China, with the exception of our organic cotton, which is also sourced from Turkey and India. All manufacturing takes place in China and India.
Q: Are your organic products certified?
A: Our organic offerings are fully certified by IMO, Control Union, OCIA, NOP or Ecocert. Copies of certificates may be requested by customers upon purchasing our product.
Organic yarns stocked in separate area to prevent contamination from nonorganic materials.
Q: What are your fair trade practices?
A: Our management team visits our manufacturers at least twice a year, to verify that they are continuing to adhere to our company’s Manufacturing Inspection Guidelines. These guidelines are in line with the principles described by the Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production website:
We personally check and confirm that workers operate in a well maintained, healthy and safe environment; they are well trained for their jobs; they are treated with respect; they are paid fairly and are provided with health insurance, sick and maternity leave benefit. No child labor is used.
Organic yarn spinning facilities are frequently cleaned to ensure no cross contamination from nonorganic fibers nearby.
Preparing for weaving hemp and organic cotton fabrics.
Fabric finishing machinery.
Q: How are your raw materials cultivated? How are they sustainable?
A: Please see our Fiber Information link for detailed information on all our fibers.
Organic linen during harvesting season.
Factory workers separating organic linen fiber manually for the best quality product.
Q: What type of dye do you use for your fabrics?
A: The dyes used on our fabrics are all Procion low impact, fiber reactive dyes. These dyes are nontoxic, safe, and eco friendly. They require only low temperature water processing and only salt and soda ash as auxiliary agents. They yield excellent results, especially on natural fibers, in which the dyed fabrics have vibrant hues and superb colorfastness. Many of our white or off-white “natural” color fabrics have been semi-bleached using hydrogen peroxide instead of harsh chlorine. In addition, we do not use any optic brighteners in our products.
Dyeing facilities for Pickering Fabrics.
Workers inspecting our soy and bamboo organic fabrics.
Q: Do you bleach your fabrics? What type of bleach is used?
A: For our bleaching process, we do not use chlorine bleach, only hydrogen peroxide bleach, and no optic brightener is used.
Q: Can I dye your natural fabrics?
A: We cannot guarantee commercial level results as most of our natural fabrics have been semi-bleached at our mills. However, many of our customers do achieve good results when dyeing. To improve results, we recommend a hot water scour before dyeing to remove any finishing agents.
Q: What care instructions are recommended for your fabrics?
A: All of our fabrics are machine washable except the wool and silk blends, for which we recommend hand washing, with no bleach, and line drying or professional cleaning. For all others, we recommend machine washing, cold water with like colors, and tumble dry low. Soy blends should not be steamed, and ironed on low temperatures. No bleach should be used. Use this green clean link to find a greener cleaner near you.
Q: Do I need to test your fabrics before use?
A: Fabrics made from natural fibers vary slightly from lot to lot. We recommend testing our fabrics (for shrinkage, etc) for each order. If you are ordering a fabric you have purchased before, please double check with a customer service representative if it is from the same lot.
Q: What if I’d like to try a new fabric but cannot make your minimums?
A: We have some fabric remnants available for customers that would like to purchase less than our 10 yard minimum. Give us a call to check the availability of the fabric you’d like to purchase.
Our remnant section – bolts with less than 10 yards each.
Q: What is the turnaround time if I’d like to have a custom fabric or color?
A: For each custom order, there is a lead time of 8-12 weeks. Depending on the fabric type, our minimums are 500-1000 yards per color, per fabric. Check with us for more details.
Our garment manufacturing facilities are GOTS certified.
Organic manufacturing is conducted in a separated facility.
Q: Do you offer any price breaks?
A: We provide additional discounts on quantities over 100, 300, and 1,000 yards of any one fabric. Our price list indicates our regular price and over-100-yard price. We grant an additional 5% discount for quantities of 300 yards, and 8% off for quantities of 1,000 or more yards. For price breaks on quantities of over 1500 yds, please contact us for further information. Also, check out our monthly sales feature.
Q: Do you charge tax?
A: We are exclusively a wholesale textile supplier. We charge sales tax to customers shipping within California that do not have a resale license — please be prepared to provide a copy of your license upon purchase. No sales tax is charged to customers residing outside of California.
Q: How do you see a bigger picture online?
A: When you are on the landing page, click the “Products” tab. Under the products tab, a drop down menu will appear. Choose the fiber category that interests you. For example, click the “Organic Cotton & Linen” fiber category, which will take you to that category page. Next click the fabric that interests you. For example, click “OCFT01,” which will take you to the product page. When you click the photo of the fabric, the screen will darken, and a larger image of the fabric will appear.