Lately all the rave is bamboo…
you’ve heard it…bamboo shirts, bamboo towels, bamboo sheets, bamboo cutting boards. The list goes on and on.
Those who aren’t familiar with bamboo may have hard time imaging bamboo being soft when they’re probably envisioning bamboo stalks and trying their hardest to comprehend how that could possibly be soft enough to be a shirt or towel. I know my 19 yr old son was curious when I got new bamboo towels, he just didn’t get it!
Quoted from thinkbamboo.com
Bamboo textiles are:
• Super soft – Bamboo towels are amazingly soft, even after repeated washings, they remain softer than the finest cotton towels. According to an October 2006 Consumer Reports article, bamboo towels are, “25 percent softer after laundering, on average, than their all-cotton counterparts”.
• Eco-friendly cultivation – Bamboo requires very little attention when grown, and is typically cultivated without the use of herbicides or pesticides. Harvesting bamboo leaves the root of the plant alive, thereby preventing erosion.
• Naturally anti-microbial – Textiles made from bamboo fibers resist the growth of bacteria, mildew, fungus, and other microbes. This means that bamboo towels stay fresher for longer between washings.
• Highly water absorbent, and fast drying – Because of the structure of the individual bamboo fibers (long hollow tubes), bamboo textiles are highly absorbent, and have a strong wicking action for fast drying. Bamboo towels absorb as much as three times the water as a similar weight cotton towel, and dry twice as fast.
• Energy Savings – Bamboo towels will save you money on your utility bills. Not only will you save water washing them less often because they stay fresh for longer between washes, but since you wash them in cold water, and they dry super fast, when you do wash them you’ll save energy on both the wash and the dry cycle.
• Hypoallergenic
As quoted from thinkbamboo.com
Bamboo is a renewable resource, and its cultivation is actually beneficial to the environment. The vast root system of a bamboo forest prevents erosion and regulates the absorption of rainwater, reducing both runoff, and the danger of flash flooding. Bamboo cultivation is also beneficial to air quality. Compared to an equivalent stand of trees, bamboo takes in 5 times as much CO2, and generates 35% more oxygen.
Bamboo is a very hardy disease resistant plant that requires no fertilizer, herbicide or pesticide to cultivate. In fact whether it‘s been certified organic or not, you can be quite confident that any bamboo that is eventually processed into consumer goods was raised organically as a matter of simple economics.