To Dry For is to die for. An entire website of graphically intoxicating tea towels is seriously alluring, especially since the season of entertaining is nearly here. Why not add a little charm to the least glamorous facet of entertaining, the heaps of dishes left behind by mounds of visitors. The collection of tea towels at To Dry For has given me the perfect excuse to escape the dish soap and suds for the appeal of an unexpected pop of glamor. You wash, I’ll dry.

This is the perfect time of year to fall in love with tea towels. Not only will they gently wick the water off your favorite dishware set, but they also provide a subtle conversation topic for the dreaded after dinner lull (although it’s generally a bad sign if your kitchen linens have more personality than your guests). For a vivid touch of charisma, just dangle one in your kitchen. Or, assuming you want to make your host/hostess swoon, tea towels are a beautiful hostess gift.

If confections of linen and cotton aren’t enough to entice your visit to To Dry For, maybe the little known facts and clever anecdotes will lure you into reading every single product description for a dose of subliminal education while you peruse. Did you know lobsters have blue blood? Did you know the Albert Bridge is the only bridge in London that has never been rebuilt?

I couldn’t resist sharing a handful of my beloved tea towels. Above, from left to right: Irons, You Wash, I’ll Dry, and Sardines. Below, from left to right: Mid Century Chairs, A Meal Without Wine, and Dirty.

I may not be able to sleep tonight if I don’t point you toward this mustard yellow Tea Rex towel and this “˜t’ towel (I know, the wit is almost unbearable). Enjoy!

Honestly, there are times when I too feel like taking a happy pill to get away from it all but the only way to be a part of it is to be educated. So don’t stop now.

These 15 books will take you down many interesting roads on your journey. Be open to it.

1. Eco Fashion

Eco Fashion by Sass Brown

“This book shows the range of companies making a difference in the area of sustainable design in fashion, exploding the myth that sustainable design is bad design, or at best basic design, by highlighting the range of companies producing desirable and well-designed apparel and accessories with a conscience. It not only demonstrates the range of products available around the globe, but explains the stories behind them and the communities they support, as well as showing how and where they make a difference.” – Laurence King Publishing

2. Future Fashion White Papers

Future Fashion White Papers by Earth Pledge

“A collection of 30 compelling essays by scientists, retailers, farmers, dyers, models and others in the industry, including Diane von Furstenberg, Julie Gilhart, and Shalom Harlow. FutureFashion White Papers take an in-depth look at the fashion industry and provides a thoughtful, wide-ranging analysis of how a transition to sustainability can be achieved. Diane von Furstenberg notes: ‘FutureFashion White Papers is an exploration that signifies movement towards a more sustainable fashion industry. It is an opportunity to think about and evaluate the fashion industry as it stands today’.” – Earth Pledge

3. The Eco-chick Guide to Life

The Eco-chick Guide To Life by Starre Vartan

“Every now and then, someone comes along who shows the rest of us how much we take for granted the freedoms of our daily lives. The eco-journalist, blogger and all-around green genie Starre Vartan is one such person. In The Eco Chick Guide to Life, her earth-first program for glamorous but environmentally conscious living, she mines new lodes of guilt, finding gems of awareness and providing detailed eco-wise shopping guides for the body, the closet, the home and the larder.” – The New York Times

4. DIY Fashion

DIY Fashion by Selena Francis-Bryden

“DIY Fashion is a cool, quirky, and creative guide to making and customizing your own clothes, bags, and accessories. It contains more than 40 thrifty, sustainable, and stylish projects, none of which require prior skill or a sewing machine. From customized hand-me-downs to elegant evening wear, the book is packed with ideas that the reader can adapt to their own taste.” – Amazon

5. Eco-Chic, The Fashion Paradox

Eco-Chic, The Fashion Paradox by Sandy Black

“Sandy Black has divided the book into four chapters: The Greening of the Fashion Industry, Re-Designing Fashion, Fibre to Fabric and Fabric to Fashion. In the first chapter she has profiled six of the most influential players in the UK ethical fashion industry: the inimitable Lynda Grose, the pioneering Fair Trade label People Tree, the mainstream advocates Marks and Spencer, the long-term campaigner Katharine Hamnett and the style leader Sarah Ratty of Ciel. By choosing these six profiles to feature at the beginning of the book Sandy Black has very quickly laid out the complex territory on which the battle for ethical fashion must be fought.” – Treehugger

6. Green Is The New Black

Green Is The New Black-How To Change The World With Style by Tamsin Blanchard

“Tamsin Blanchard is a journalist and writer. Since 2005, she has been the Telegraph Magazine’s style director. Before that she wrote about fashion and interiors for The Observer, and spent three years as The Independent‘s fashion editor. She is contributing fashion editor to the V&A Magazine, and a sometime contributing editor to 10 Magazine. She has also written for Vogue, Marie Claire, US Harper’s Bazaar, and The Daily Rubbish. In the late Nineties, she co-founded “˜it’ a luxury boxed magazine for fashion, art and design. She has taught fashion journalism at Central Saint Martins and University of Westminster and is currently an external assessor at London College of Fashion.”

With a foreword by Lily Cole, and lots of contributions from designers and eco experts, it is an entertaining, inspiring guide on how to be fashionably green. – www.tamsin blanchard.com

7. Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys

Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys by Kate Fletcher

“Kate Fletcher is a practitioner and academic who has been working in the field of sustainable fashion for the last 15 years: she has recently become Reader in Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. Her consultancy within the fashion industry, coupled with her educational experience, makes her uniquely well qualified to write this much-needed text. Fletcher, who has helped to develop the concept of “˜slow fashion’, is at the center of research in this area and calls upon both established texts such as McDonough and Braungart’s Cradle to Cradle and recent research from a wide variety of sources, including her own, to support her writing. The quality of research is high.” – Oxford Art Journal

8. co Chic: The Savvy Shoppers Guide to Ethical Fashion

Eco Chic: The Savvy Shoppers Guide to Ethical Fashion by Matilda Lee

“The hottest trend on the catwalk is ethical clothing. Top fashion designers and spokes models including Katharine Hamnett, Stella McCartney and Bono’s wife Ali Hewson are all voicing the benefits of eco chic. But what is this new fad, and what difference can it make to the world? “Eco Chic” gives you the full story on this fashion phenomenon, from which fabrics are harmful to the environment, to how you can create your own eco-friendly fashions through recycling and savvy shopping. You will discover how to spot and avoid garments produced in sweatshops and why supermarket ‘fast clothes’ make both you and the planet sick. This book will allow you to look great but also feel good about your impact on other people and the planet as a whole.” – Amazon

9. Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories: A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays

Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories: A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays by Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant

“Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories boldly presents alternative understandings of sustainable design, to curate a challenging, sometimes uncomfortable and always provocative, collection of essays by some of the world’s leading sustainable design thinkers. The result is an authoritative anthology that reinvigorates the culture of critique that in previous years has empowered design with the qualities of social, environmental and economic revolution.” – Earthscan

10. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

-¦a readable and evenhanded treatment of the complexities of world trade”¦ As Rivoli repeatedly makes clear, there is absolutely nothing free about free trade except the slogan.” – San Francisco Chronicle

11. Threads of Labour

Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Worker’s Perspective by Angela Hale and Jane Wills

“This book gives valuable insights for decision-makers in international clothing brands. Read it and learn how garment workers worldwide are affected by the sub-contracted manufacturing that characterizes this industry.” – Dan Rees, Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative

12. Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles

Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint

“The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical alchemy. In Eco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes.

India explores the fascinating and infinitely variable world of plant color using a wide variety of techniques and recipes. From whole-dyed cloth and applied color to prints and layered dye techniques, India describes only ecologically sustainable plant-dye methods. She uses renewable resources and shows how to do the least possible harm to the dyer, the end user of the object, and the environment. Recipes include a number of entirely new processes developed by India, as well as guidelines for plant collection, directions for the distillation of nontoxic mordants, and methodologies for applying plant dyes.” – Amazon

13. Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style

Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style by Christie Matheson

“Matheson slyly steers us toward consumer goods and services that minimize our earth-stomping human footprint. She’s brave enough to say ‘buy less of everything,’ and even the politically fraught ‘buy nothing.’ Matheson’s genius is to make this seem not only doable, but fun.” – Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land and Bottlemania

14. Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?

Sustainable Fashion: Why Now? A Conversation Exploring Issues, Practices and Possibilities by Janet Hethorn and Connie Ulasewicz

“Sustainable Fashion: Why Now? is a critical read for anyone with ties to the fashion industry: designers, marketers, product developers, retailers, teachers, students, and consumers that want to become involved with balancing the fashion desires of the individual with the need to be a steward of our environment.” – Fashion Practice

15. Fugitive Denim

Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade by Rachel Louise Snyder

“Smart and ambitious, cosmopolite journalist Snyder maps the global garment industry, beginning in a New York loft where designers plot a line of ultra-pricey, socially responsible jeans that would ensure a fair wage for workers and not cause excessive environmental degradation. From there she visits cotton growers in Azerbaijan, denim specialists in Italy and factories in Cambodia and China. An excellent reporter, Snyder talks comfortably to both sophisticated designers and factory workers, conveying their very different motives as she paints a picture of an industry far more tangled than most consumers imagine. She notes that economic and employment shifts are felt globally, describing Italy mourning the loss of manufacturing to cheaper factories in Asia, where low-paying jobs represent unprecedented opportunity to many workers. If the prose occasionally verges on cuteness, it’s preferable to the jargon of quotas and NGOs ubiquitous in most discussions of global trade. Snyder’s investigation is an essential read for those curious about fashion or the globe-spanning business that produces their clothes.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Photo credit: Book pages by Horia Varlan on Flickr, licensed for commercial use under Creative Commons.

The fashion industry is facing many challenges, but one of the most pressing issues is water usage.  The textile industry is the third largest consumer and polluter of the world’s water. Water consumption is a huge problem for growing fibers such as the ever-thirsty cotton plant, with nearly 400 gallons of water required to produce just one cotton t-shirt.

Waste water is conceivably an even bigger issue than consumption. Toxic chemicals produced from dyeing textiles, along with other chemicals such as those used to produce synthetics, are contributing to a major crisis in pollution of fresh water, affecting the health of a number of species, including humans.  (Read The Consequences of Chemicals, Future Fashion White Papers).

Heavy metals such as chromium and cadmium, which are used to make bright and vibrant dyes, pose a threat wherever they appear in a product lifestyle, particularly the use of the dye in dye wastewater. Air Dye is a revolutionary technology that dyes textiles without using any water. Not only are they reducing the overall amount of water required to produce a garment, but this technology also prevents toxic chemicals from entering our ecosystems.

Some manufacturers work in closed-loop production, which means that the waste or effluent produced is treated and re-used, reducing the amount of toxic waste normally disposed of into the ecosystem.  The company Lenzing is a great example, with their fabrics modal and  tencel, made from a wood pulp much like bamboo (which has yet to be manufactured in a closed-loop environment).

But so much attention has been given to the energy, chemicals and water that go into making a garment that what many people don’t realize is the majority of the environmental damage comes once a garment has been purchased. The energy and water required to wash a garment has far more devastating effects than the growing of the raw materials and the manufacturing of the textiles. Surprising? Not really when you consider that the average piece of clothing lasts three years, and is laundered hundreds of times in its lifetime.

The average North American household washes 400 loads of laundry per year. This accumulated number of washes requires 13,500 gallons of water to complete, and is equivalent to how much water it takes to fill a standard above-ground pool!

The first steps towards recovering from our water addiction begin with wearing our clothes several times before washing. But once we get to a full laundry basket that is truly in need of a wash, there are a few basic tips to help you get started on eco-friendly and budget-smart laundering habits.

1) Wash your clothes in cold water: An interesting fact – using only hot water for washing your clothes uses more electricity in a year than leaving the refrigerator door open 24 hours a day for an entire year. Cold water is the best alternative, as it not only reduces fabric shrinkage, but it allows colors to remain vibrant. So your clothes will fit and last longer AND you’ll reduce your carbon emissions by 500 pounds a year!

2) Wash full loads: Washing machines are most efficient when operating at capacity. Take advantage of your washing machine’s full potential and load it up. Your budget will thank you for it.

3) Use the right amount and type of detergent: When doing a load of laundry do you use the cap size as an indicator of the amount of detergent you should use? If so, odds are you are using way too much laundry detergent than what is actually needed. The amount you use should reflect the guiding lines on the inside of the cap. Here’s a great article on Treehugger with more information.

Another helpful hint is to look for phosphate-free detergents. Phosphates are the leading chemical agent in algal blooms and a major cause of aquatic ecosystem depletion. Also, instead of fabric softeners, try using white vinegar in the rinse cycle. The acid vinegar will neutralize the basic detergents and as a result will help keep your clothes looking clean.

4) Consider an Energy-Star rated washer: Gone are the days of scrubbing our laundry by hand down at the lake. If you’re in the market to replace your washing machine, consider a more cost effective one. An Energy-Star or front-loading washing machine can save thousands of liters of water a year and be 30 – 85% more energy efficient.

Image above from Costello Tagilapietra’s 2009 show at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week featuring Air Dye technology.

Related posts: Nifty Eco-Friendly Laundry Tricks Worth Trying
Eco Laundry Drying Secrets Revealed
Squeeze Em’ Into Any Teeny Tiny Space Laundry Racks
10 Myths About Dry Cleaning
Dry Clean Only? An Eco Expert Tells Us When It’s Safe to Ignore Labels

You don’t have to be an economist to want to understand the economics of “the fabric of our lives.” Case in point: The recent ban on cotton exports by the Indian government has piqued my curiosity. I wanted to understand whether this ban would have an impact not only on the cotton farmers, particularly those growing organic and fair-trade cotton, but also what impact it might have on us as consumers.

What I learned is that there are no clear answers.

Fact: the price of cotton is at a 15-year high.

Why? According to Eco Textile News, this is the result of Indian authorities lowering cotton export tax rebates. With higher rebates there is more incentive to export raw cotton. Once you lower those tax rebates, you are effectively lowering its export appeal. Supply goes down, but demand is up (marginally), and the price of cotton rises.

So why ban raw cotton export altogether? What does this mean to the farmers? And what will be the impact to consumers?

The reason for the ban is simple, if you are the Indian government and your best interest is to protect the textile industry. A robust export market means a shortfall in the amount of cotton available for India’s own textile manufacturing sector. When you factor in China as a fierce competitor, this makes sense. China is, after all, the world’s largest cotton importer.

When it comes to the impact of the ban on cotton farmers, there are conflicting views.

On the one hand, some experts contend this decision was made in haste, out of panic over the fact that cotton prices have risen by 80%. And, that by restricting exports, cotton farmers (particularly organic and fair-trade growers) are not seeing any of the benefits enjoyed by the cotton traders. The organic and fair-trade cotton growers in India rely heavily on its export, and some believe that when times are good, these communities should be supported rather than punished.

On the other hand, some organizations support the banning of raw cotton export from India.

“I believe the true value of this commodity is long overdue, and has been taken advantage of for so many years,” says UK Pants to Poverty representative Ben Ramsden. “Without any move to keep cotton within India, the booming Indian textile and garmenting industry could be considerably challenged, putting further strain on this very fragile industry.”

Will we feel this impact on our wallets?

In some cases, fabric suppliers could pass their costs up the supply chain. This would result in retailers paying more for basic cotton items such as socks and t-shirts. However, some industry experts claim the ban will have little impact on domestic cotton prices, as most of the exports for the current cotton season have already been committed. So if we do feel any price sting, it will likely be marginal.

To this end, Ramsden says, “If this goes some way to enabling us all to understand more about where our clothes come from, and why our choices can change the world, then the whole exercise will be fantastic.”

Image: Ken Lund

Imagine a TV ad featuring a loopy  Zooey Deschanel singing the praises of plastic. Not pretty, nor as comfy as the touch and feel of cotton – which carries its share of pitfalls as well. Still, ubiquitous plastic has functioned as the toxic fabric of our lives for the past sixty years.

Wake up and smell the polymers. Literally.

Synthetics play an inescapable role in our lives, unlike the cotton-coated world portrayed in Deschanel’s ad. Consider:

You awake, clad in polyester pajamas, squeeze toothpaste from a slick tube onto the polyamides nylon bristles of your toothbrush, wash your hair with phthalates-enhanced goo from colorful containers, and comb your tresses with a plastic comb that was (of course) hermetically sealed in plastic casing.

You use a plastic sealed tampon and head to breakfast, descending stairs carpeted in stain-resistant synthetic shag embedded with acid dye blockers to brew coffee through a plastic cone filter. You remove the foil crown from your yogurt container and the chunky green cap from your bottle of Simply Orange. You fry an egg in your non-stick, polytetrafluoroethylene treated pan. You climb into your car – the interior, carpet, dashboard and windshield fabricated with more of that plastic. You don your polycarbonate eye wear and apply a smudge of sunblock from that tube in the glove compartment, and you’re off.

You’re sipping your beverage from a plastic lid, ready to embrace a work milieu stocked with royal blue Papermate pens, a plastic keyboard, a double decker printer and mystery mesh task chairs with sturdy polyurethane arms.

You get the picture, and yes, it isn’t the hopeful one conveyed to college grad Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate in 1967. Plastics, considered king when petroleum was abundant, could become a thing of the past sooner than you think. Here’s another word for you Ben: Tanked!

“It’s not talked about on CNN, but informed people including the CIA and Defense Department know oil supplies are crashing rapidly,” observes conservationist Brad Hoyt about the looming crisis. “We stopped producing the oil we need in the ’70s and those we are exporting it from will stop because they don’t have enough to meet their own needs. What will we do then? We will either have to do without or go to war with Mexico and Saudi Arabia and take their oil.”

Mexico’s exports to the U.S. declined to 0.51 barrels per day from 2005-2008, and in 2010, supply is expected to fall to 2.5, nearly half a million barrels per day less than in 2009. In other words, a major source for manufacturing the fabric of our lives is seriously threatened.

“The possibility that Mexico’s oil and gas exports to the U.S could go to zero within seven years looks very real,” says investment analyst Chris Neddler of Energy & Capital.  “Rising domestic consumption with declining supply puts an ever-tightening squeeze on imports, yet I have found no evidence that policymakers are paying any attention to this critically important dynamic.”

Meanwhile, what many of us cannot ignore is the damage already done from petroleum-based products, especially the Pacific Ocean plastic islands which serve as graveyards of misguided consumption and evidence we are destroying places where we don’t even go.

Human beings have always manipulated materials for everyday objects. Reeds for baskets, clay for dishes, metal for tools and carts. The term plastic is derived from the Greek plastikos, which means fit for molding, something that can be pulled, cast or pressed into various shapes for tubes, bottles, boxes and fibers.

The commercial plastic or celluloid we have come to know and rely on, is largely derived from petroleum, which is a concern since it is basically toxic and something you don’t really want on your skin. Back in 1951, two research chemists discovered polypropylene polyethylene while greasing the wheels for a manufacturing process that begins with drilling and refining to form the powdery polymer compound. From there the compound is molded and cooled and divided into tiny pellets to be shipped to the makers who continue to mold it into almost everything you touch and feel.

Imagine a day without the touch and feel of plastics. If you can, you are way ahead of the pack, and most likely will fare better when the celluloid that engulfed your existence becomes a memory. But don’t  be alarmed. The vast stores of the stuff we have produced the past 10 years, alone, should get us through the hump until those helpful chemists come along with another brilliant idea.

Images: ringoblog, The Find,  Urban Boundaries, Richforth, Ancora

Fast fashion is big business. “Pile “˜em high and sell “˜em cheap” is the mantra of fashion stores the world over, as each one clamors for a slice of every fashionista’s budget. There used to be just two fashion ranges in a year; now factories across the globe are working non-stop to produce as many as ten different ranges to feed our insatiable appetite for the very latest fashions, colors and trends.

These demands call for a huge amount of cotton, and just where does it come from? China produces the most, with India and the US following closely behind. But, a recent report from the Ethical Justice Foundation highlights the agonizing plight of cotton farmers in Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

Uzbekistan is the third leading cotton exporter; the white fluffy stuff accounts for 60 percent of Uzbekistan’s total export income, so it’s huge business there. But, as the report states, the totalitarian dictatorship government led by Islam Karimov, is the only organization that benefits from the huge profits that the industry generates. The millions of dollars that cotton generates are keeping the regime’s bank balances in the black.

Using questionable “state procurement” laws, the government forces all cotton farmers to hand over their harvest for an incredibly low price. Farmers are paid as little as 28 Uzbek soms (equivalent to $0.018 ) per kilo of cotton, but it is sold by the government for up to 400 soms. The report also uncovered the government’s practice of “cheating” the farmers out of income by declaring their cotton harvests as poor quality. The price paid is significantly lower, but magically the same “poor” quality cotton is later sold as “premium”.

The Karimov regime was recently thrown into the media spotlight amid allegations of financial corruption and the murder of protesters at a peaceful rally in 2005. The profits secured from cotton production are used to further tighten the regime’s control of the population and ensure vast wealth for the country’s few cotton barons. Farmers dare not protest for fear of persecution or imprisonment. The people of Uzbekistan are denied democratic elections, freedom of speech or movement.

But it gets worse. In order to boost the cotton farming workforce during peak harvesting times, children are pulled from schools. The report estimates that as many as 200,000 children are employed on the cotton fields in the region of Ferghana alone. If children don’t reach their assigned quota they are often physically punished and threatened with expulsion.

As if human rights atrocities and a destructive appetite for labor verging on slavery wasn’t enough, the Uzbek cotton industry is responsible for one of the worst ecological disasters to date. The Aral Sea was once the world’s 4th largest body of water. Enormous demands for irrigation to feed the cotton fields meant that rivers were diverted away from the sea and it has now shrunk to less than 15 percent of its original size. Obviously, this has impacted hugely on the communities that depended on the sea for their livelihood. The once shore-side town of Moynaq employed over 60,000 people in the fishing industry. The town is now miles away from the sea shore and is desolate and bleak. The destruction of this vital resource has caused conflict, tension and thousands of refugees without employment.

Grim reading? Certainly; but there are ways to help. Organic cotton is widely available in many fashion retailers as suppliers jump on the eco trend and clothes and cotton goods that are clearly labeled with the origin means that consumers will have greater choice and control over the origin of their cotton. Fabrics such as hemp, bamboo and soy are also making some headway in being recognized as sustainable, effective alternatives to cotton.

Slowly but surely, consumers are waking up to the fast-fashion nightmare and are realizing the benefits of longer lasting, organic and well made apparel. It seems, thank goodness, that ethical style is no longer the arena of striped jumpers and left wing students; it is something we can all embrace.

“˜Being a cotton farmer here is like hanging between life and death. The government controls our lives very tightly. If we don’t obey, we’ll end up in trouble. All we want is freedom. And the state is punishing us for wanting freedom.’

- UZBEK COTTON FARMER, 2005.
Taken from The Environmental Justice Foundation Report “White Gold – the True Cost of Cotton”.

You can read more about this topic here.

Images: Tibor Fazakas, Wikimedia Commons, Fernando Weberich, Wikimedia Commons author MAN77

Editor’s note: This is a guest post courtesy of freelance writer Sioned Bannister. You can follow her personal blog here.

Here are new finds we love:

Flax, silk, cotton and hemp duvets and and ed skirts from Zia and Tia combine organic sustainable elements in both monochromatic and rich color options (pick from the pile), adding exotic elements to your room. Custom quality and a bit pricier than most. Think henna tattoo for the linens. $400 to $750.

The Kalamkari bed cover and shams collection from Viva Terra weaves the floral and fern motif in natural indigo on pure white sun-bleached organic cotton, using gentle Ayurvedic dyes extracted from plants and roots in a process dating back 400 years, $45 to $99.

Red Coral Organic Duvet Cover and Sham, Pottery Barn, $25 – $110. Our coral reefs may be disappearing but this gift form the sea still thrives in textile design and takes you to a resort mindset even in rainy, winter weather.

Bungle in the jungle, baby, with the organic and highly exotic Desert Retreat Leopard Duvet, $143 to $223, from Ralph Lauren Spa. This is an animal print we can live with.

Placid shading and stonelike textural originality from VivaTerra, the exquisite Felted Stone Lumbar Pillow by renowned South African textile designer Ronel Jordaan, $198.

Anthropologie is waking up to organic – finally – in its BoHo fashion, introducing new organic cotton sheeting evoking ferns, flowers, berries and vines. Sets are $68 to $268.

Clary Sage Organics Black Ribbon Pants with a Black Essential Cami

I love that yoga clothing has gotten a lot more fashion-forward, don’t you?

Gone are the days of moms in old leotards and tights doing Jazzercise with their breasts bouncing to the beat of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria!”

Movin your Boogie Body?

Clary Sage Organics can keep up with that.

And to prove it, they’ve donated these super stylish Black Ribbon Pants with a black Essential Cami. Take my word for it, this little outfit will not only keep you all together when in Downward Dog, it will keep you looking stylish whenever you want to boogie down.

Wherever that might be.

From their apparel to beauty products, tinctures to medicinal teas, Clary Sage Organics is committed to using 100% organic or ecologically sustainable products.

Their site says:

“As one of the most heavily sprayed crops, conventionally grown cotton is a particular concern. More than 13 million acres are harvested every year in the U.S., and each of those acres is sprayed with an average of 13 lbs. of carcinogenic pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants that contaminate our soil, air and water, ultimately ending up permeating our bodies and our children’s bodies.”

Clary Sage has also partnered with the Sustainable Cotton Project in support of local California farmers producing organic cotton and strive to offer the highest possible percentage of organic cotton in their apparel.

Wait a minute.

Do you hear it?

It’s Laura Branigan music creeping in quietly.

It’s a segue to leave a comment below to win this beautiful Clary Sage Organics outfit that fellow yogis will breathlessly admire.

STRRRRRETCH and leave a comment below to be entered.

For official guidelines, go here.

I remember remodeling my master bath and thinking – wow, I need to hang some new towels on the bars over the tub to accent this very personalized home spa of mine. Where were you, Amy, when I needed you and those coral damask print terries?

Well, you’re here now, and that’s all that really matters, you prolific Midwestern designer you. As striking and exotic as her new organic bedding, Amy Butler’s new gorgeous green towels are super soft to the touch, absorbent when wrapped around your goddess bod, and so chic, they will bring life to both the old grungy tiled bath as well as the mod redux.

As a designer, I’m drawn to her color combos, the blending of soothing blues and greens, reds and violets, oranges and aquas. The fact they are spun of healthy eco fibers is just icing on the cake. By the way, do you love eating cake in the bath as much as I do? Coconut? Get out of here!

As Butler puts it: “The bold and vibrant colors will brighten up any bathroom space even in the wee hours of the morning when waking up is so hard to do. These joyful designs will lift your spirits and get you going!”

Leave a comment and win your own! You will get yourself two of my favorites, the turquoise and the orange when we randomly pick a winner. It’s terry nice.

For official rules click here.

“When you watch the commercials you can tell they’re made of cheap stuff,” says my astute oldest daughter about the fleece blanket sensation known as the Snuggieâ„¢. “The people wearing them are just so cheesy, like the man in the leopard one who says he’s so glad he found a fun designer print that suits his personality.”

Snuggie consumers proudly wear the Made-in-China label on their sleeves, not considering the synthetic polyester fabric they’re breathing in all the while they’re adjusting their thermostats in the thin, robe-like throws. I find they leave me as cold as those stinky, plastic sealed airline blankets gifted to us on flights.

I’m not the only one with a chilly view of the blankets. There’s the YouTube ad that parodies by Snuggieâ„¢ haters, such as one done in the mockumentary format of The Office in which an employer forces her people to wear the wraps at work, despite their protests. A piece in Time shares one young man’s review: “It’s a bathrobe. That is really long. That you wear backwards.”

So far, five million and counting have bought into the ads depicting gray-haired ladies knitting on the sofa, moms reading on the sofa, great aunts chatting away on the phone on the sofa. One thing is clear: Folks just don’t get off that sofa when they’re folded into a Snuggie. Call it a straight jacket for polluted planet!

Allstar Products Group, Inc., the maker of the blanket, set up a Facebook Fan page and attracted 5,000 users in addition to an official online fan club site. That’s a lot of fleece.

Among the enthusiastic takers is my 10-year-old daughter, who went behind her green-leaning parents to ask a relative to buy her one for her birthday in the original royal blue.

She’s a big infomercial hound, my youngest, often repeating lines from the ads when we are out buying necessities for the house. “Mom, you should get the Ped Egg because it’s like having a professional spa treatment right in your own home,” she advises.

She had a fever over the weekend and taking away that Snuggie was harder than wrestling a cheese stick away from my pug. Pugs have little teeth, but they’ll take you down over cheese, and so will Lauren over a cheesy blanket.

“My friend Simon had one and I thought it would be warm for camp because I sleep right near the window,” says my daughter. “I also like it when I’m sick cause it makes me feel all snuggie.”

We don’t buy polyester bedding and we don’t want our kid dragging around a toxic security blanket. Yet burning it could create a micro Valdez. Which begs the question, how do you safely dispose of Mr. Snuggieâ„¢?

Because of the questionable chemicals in the fiber, I find it ironic how American Allstar Group’s publicity machine has tied in “the country’s favorite blanket with sleeves” with one of the country’s most pernicious diseases – breast cancer.

In May, they introduced the limited edition pink blanket for breast cancer. The company says it will donate $50,000 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation on behalf of the product.

I suppose the irony is that many of the questions posed to researchers at Cancer.Org relate to the link between toxins in textiles and breast cancer. One reader was wondering about her mother who had he worked at a chain of stores in which she cut cloth materials containing the kind of junk that is used to produce my daughter’s favorite throw.

If the Snuggie is such a mega hit and has made tons of dough for Allstar, why hasn’t an organic textile company made their own version of a healthy fleece blanket with sleeves?

“The Snuggie is a safe product, as it is approved and certified by all relevant industry standards,” I’m told by Anne Flynn, Director of Marketing at Allstar. “Snuggie is currently in the process of evaluating other materials, including natural, eco-friendly options, to meet consumer needs.”

Until we meet the eco Snuggie, the only newly unveiled additions introduced for the coming winter are styles for kids, dogs, a more plush version of the current design, and black and purple tie-dye fashions for the holidays.

I did find a few greener options, such as a Bear Adventure Warm Me Up made of recycled synthetics from Blankets and More (being introduced November 1st), and a cozy kimono for the preemie baby. There’s also the 85% recycled materials Peekaru, shown above (top left), for mom and baby.

Otherwise, the market is wide open for a healthier blanket with sleeves. My friends at Chia better get right on it!

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images: Bread and Sham, All Left Turns, SFGate, MomLogic, Snuggieâ„¢ Fan Club