Shirts Of Bamboo Blog

Maybe you have read the Shirts of Bamboo washing instructions…

Dry cleaning? Leave that for the wool, silk, and cashmere! Save your money and be kinder to the environment by simply showing your bamboo clothing a little love, and it will outlast any cotton clothing. Wash on a gentle setting (we use cold water.) Skip the chlorine bleach and liquid fabric softener, which can damage bamboo fibers. Line dry or tumble dry on low setting, using dryer sheets if you like. Wrinkles seem to fall right out of bamboo, making your iron obsolete,(and making bamboo perfect for travel), but if you insist, iron on a low setting.

As illustrated by the photo below — washing your bamboo shirts in the river using sharp pointy rocks is just a bad idea (and it will void your warranty).

So — just don’t do it.

Back in the office, and working on all the product reviews and comparisons — stay tuned over the next couple of days which I get all the posts done.

In case you are interested in the group photo of our Grand Canyon Adventure - fondly knows as the Fruit and Nut Medley Tour — click on the thumbnail below.

and see all the photos here: http://www.twango.com/channel/markso.GrandCanyonTrip

Well, your editor is off on his adventure testing of clothing from Shirts of Bamboo on the wild rapids of Grand Canyon. No email or Internet for three weeks because I’m too cheap to rent a satellite terminal (that and the rest of the crew would throw me off the boat).

Wish me luck.

Oh folks — we’ve got a couple of pictures for you of more of the SOB Grand Canyon Challenge Gear.

So — here is the run down on the equipment. The center shot is your author in his “Green Queen” Shirts of Bamboo 70% Bamboo/30% Organic Cotton t-shirt that arrived in Berkeley (a stop on my trip) just in time for the trip.

The other two photos are of the Hot Pink Solio charger for my PDA that I’ll have to blog on for the three weeks I’m out of communication — the SOB budget doesn’t allow for a satellite terminal in the canyon. Damn.

For more information on the Solio click this link. Product review after the trip.

And more importantly, the TreeHugger review!

Shop around — REI has them for $99. Other places $79 — I forget what mine cost — probably less than $79 because someone was closing the pink ones out for less than the white or silver.

So — here is an image off the web of a truly green car. I wonder how many miles to the bale of hay?

Image courtesy of the BBC

Just a quick note to announce that Shirts of Bamboo is supporting the Great Art Party, a benefit for the endowment to support Floating Bridge Press. The Great Art Party will be held on September 7, 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Premium tickets are $100 which entitles you to leave with a piece of art valued at at least $100 (with the average being over $350).

Floating Bridge Press is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to affirm and promote quality poetry as a written and spoken art, enhancing the lives of poet and audience in the immediate and broader communities. Our yearly goals are to:

·        Publish a limited-edition, archival quality chapbook that is a work of art.

·        Produce a Seattle poetry reading series, with an ASL interpretation for the deaf available upon request.

·        Publish an anthology that recognizes a broad range of talent by showcasing excellent individual poems from the non-winning manuscripts.

·        Provide Washington poets with world-wide exposure through a website.

·        Encourage poets with monetary support.

·        Take on special projects when deemed appropriate.

Yep — one of your blog editors is a car guy…. but they need to be black (my aunt lives in Dearborn, home to Ford, so for many years only painted his cars black — because at the time it was the cheapest color).

So — here’s a link for you car hounds (and I know woman car hounds as well).

http://www.popularmechanics.com/greengarage features Jay Leno — who is truly car obsessed, and has the paycheck to help with the bills. But he’s also put a wind turbine on top of his garage, and tries to do other things to mitigate the fact that his “tank car” gets 3mpg.

From the Open Press:

Thanks to Mother Nature and a few innovative thinkers, we now have clothing and linens made with bamboo. Although not yet available in every store in town, and the clothing styles are still limited, bamboo clothing and linens are well worth the search: They surpass organic cotton and silk in every way that matters to those with dry skin or eczema. Although they won’t take the place of an effective dry skin care lotion, bamboo clothing and linens actually address some of the factors that cause and exacerbate skin problems.

What are the unique qualities of bamboo?

* The fabrics are three to four times more absorbent than cotton: bamboo absorbs and evaporates sweat so quickly you’ll stay dry and cool in the hot summer and dry and warm on the slopes. Retaining natural moisture is vital for those with dry skin and eczema, but sweat sitting on the skin actually worsens the condition.

* Bamboo clothing and linens are soft, smooth and silky. On a microscopic level, bamboo fibers are round and smooth. Consequently, the clothing feels and hangs like silk, doesn’t cling to the body and doesn’t snag on rough patches of skin.

* Bamboo breathes: the same porous qualities that enable absorption also make bamboo fabrics cooler than others. They are cool to the touch and, if you could take their temperature, you would see they are two or three degrees cooler than other clothing.

* The fabrics, like the plants, are naturally antibacterial and antifungal. Although skin is designed to fight bacteria and fungus, this function in damaged or dry skin is greatly inhibited. Tests done on bamboo fabric exposed to bacteria found that, when new, it kills 99.8 percent of the bacteria and still eliminates 70 percent after being washed 50 times. As the unpleasant odors associated with sweat are caused by bacteria, bamboo will also help you smell fresh.

* As the bamboo plant is not prone to bugs and other pests, it is grown without the usual chemicals that can also irritate the skin.

No fabric will actually heal dry skin: for that you need adequate exercise, a nourishing junk-free diet free of chemicals, cleansing and other skin care products that don’t exacerbate the conditions, and a dry skin care solution that locks in natural moisture while protecting against damage from chemicals and other irritants. However, bamboo will certainly make you more comfortable and at least you’ll know that your skin problems are not caused by your clothes.

FROM USA TODAY…

This morning brings us yet another story about people using feces to make paper.

A few years ago, we told you that President Bush received a box of “elephant dung writing paper, envelopes and name cards” from a visiting Sri Lankan dignitary. (This website sells pachyderm paper.) Then we heard that a Thai zoo was peddling souvenirs made from the undigested bamboo pulp that its two pandas excrete each day.

Now, some enterprising Chinese researchers are planning to make paper with the 200 tons of poop that their dozens of giant pandas produce each year. “Pandas’ excretion is a perfect raw material to make paper due to pandas’ high fiber diet,” Huang Xiangming, an official at the panda breeding center, tells the Chengdu Daily newspaper. He says bamboo scent will be added to some of the environmental souvenirs, which should hit the market next year.The process, according to the AP, “involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.”

From the Sky Valley Journal

DES MOINES, Iowa - A new species of North American bamboo was recently discovered by Iowa State University and University of North Carolina botanists, making it the third known native species of the hardy grass in the United States. The “hill cane” was discovered in the Appalachian Mountains. It‘s different from the other two native species of bamboo, which were discovered more than 200 years ago, because it drops its leaves in the fall.

Complete article here.