Clothes

  • The skin is the body's largest organ and is 16% of the body by weight.
  • The skin helps maintain body temperature. When it's hot or during exercise, you perspire through your skin to help you cool down. If you block the pores of your skin it will impact on this mechanism.
  • The body creates vitamin D through the action of sunlight on the skin. In the UK half an hour outdoors in the winter makes all the difference. This is not the same as burning on a tropical beach!
  • The skin reacts to heat, light, temperature, pressure and maybe some other things we don't understand.
  • The skin is sensitive to chemicals, some of which can be absorbed by the skin and pass into the body.
  • You can't breath through your skin in the way that a frog does, so that it can stay underwater for longer periods, but there is some exchange of gases through the skin.
  • It would seem sensible to wear natural clothing that is not too tight, so that the skin can function as intended and not be in contact with artificial chemicals, particularly petroleum based chemicals.
  • No-iron cotton clothing contains formaldehyde. That's the chemical used to preserve laboratory specimens. You don't want this on your skin!
  • When you are exercising, in particular, you probably wouldn't want to douse your skin in a mixture of perspiration and toxic chemicals!
  • I've never really understood why anybody would want to rub petroleum jelly into their skin either!
  • It is also worth thinking about the chemicals that you wash your clothes in. You probably wouldn't want any nasty chemicals left on your clothes, particularly next to your skin.
  • The main natural fibres available today are cotton, hemp and bamboo. Twenty five percent of all pesticides used on the earth today are used in the production of cotton, so do consider organic cotton.
  • There are many great eco-friendly clothing companies out there right now. The clothes are good quality, great designs and made with passion. As I'm sitting here eating a few brazil nuts, I can't help reflecting that the tree they came from could be one thousand years old. How are we leaving the planet for the future?