Cotton sounds environmentally friendly right? ...It’s a natural fibre and doesn’t involve petrochemicals so buying a cotton shirt is eco? ...Wrong.
To make a non-iron cotton shirt you need to use 2,700 litres of water to grow the fibre, apply 16.5% of the world's insecticides per annum to grow cotton and then coat the fibres in harmful chemicals like formaldehyde to make the fibres stiff and less prone to crease.
You then need to wash the shirt after a day of wearing it due to the odour build-up caused by bacteria breeding on the fibres, using litres of water again for each wash while decreasing the life of the shirt as 1,000’s of fibres get washed into the water system.
There is an alternative and that’s our merino shirts. It only takes some grass and water to grow merino wool that is naturally crease-free, making our shirts non-iron.
No need for any nasty chemicals or insecticides to produce our merino shirts, however, this is just half the story. Merino’s party trick is the antibacterial benefit of wearing our merino shirts, stopping the breeding of bacteria and therefore eliminating nasty odours, even after wearing the shirt in warm, humid climates for the day. This, along with the non-iron characteristics of merino wool allows you to wear your shirt all week without needing to wash it, saving power, time and litres of water while preserving the life of your merino shirt because you are not washing 1,000s of fibres away after each wear.