Totally Organic and Totally Cute!

Have you seen the organic stuff out there for little babies? Most of it comes in the color of that mixed rice cereal that infants often eat. While one piece of clothing in that color may be appealing, a whole wardrobe of it is a bit ho hum. At Frog Tales and Fairy Dust, we are just introducing a new line of organics by Sage Creek. They use 100% vegetable dye, but by using a special process, they get the dye to cling to the fabric. The result? Super fun, saturated colors with playful designs.

Why organic? It's pretty simple once you think about it. Organic cotton is grown without the use of pesticides or other harmful chemicals. This means that the end product is also pesticide and chemical free which is a purer way to cloth your little one. The big payoff is really in the environment. It takes roughly 1/3 of a pound of chemicals to grow enough non-organic cotton to make just one tee-shirt. That translates to a whole lot of toxicity being mixed in with our soil and being blown around in the air. If we want to make the Earth a better place for our children and our children's children, the best place to start is by buying organic.

Drop us an email and let us know how you feel about organic clothing.

Below are some fast facts about traditionally grown cotton and the effects on our environment:

•Cotton uses approximately 25% of the world's insecticides and more than 10% of the pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides, and defoliants.). (Allan Woodburn)

•Approximately 10% of all pesticides sold for use in U. S. agriculture were applied to cotton in 1997, the most recent year for which such data is publicly available. (ACPA)

•Eighty-four million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on the 14.4 million acres of conventional cotton grown in the U.S. in 2000 (5.85 pounds/ acre), ranking cotton second behind corn in total amount of pesticides sprayed. (USDA)

•Over 2.03 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers were applied to conventional cotton the same year (142 pounds/acre), making cotton the fourth most heavily fertilized crop behind corn, winter wheat, and soybeans. (USDA)

•The Environmental Protection Agency considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the United States as "possible," "likely," "probable," or "known" human carcinogens (acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin). (EPA)

•In 1999, a work crew re-entered a cotton field about five hours after it was treated with tribufos and sodium chlorate (re-entry should have been prohibited for 24 hours). Seven workers subsequently sought medical treatment and five have had ongoing health problems. (California DPR)