Shirts Of Bamboo Blog

Thinking about remodelling and thinking green? Here is a nice guide to what is green in the remodelling scene for flooring.

Having checked out paint for my walls, the next mission in greening my home was to tear up the dated carpets chock-full of two decades worth of bacteria and dirt. My dog sheds enough allergens for me to worry about as it is and brown shag wasn’t my idea of a cheerful look! Once I’d exposed the sub flooring, I had to pick among the many eco-friendly flooring options available, searching for the perfect combination of attractiveness, durability and price.

Here is the full article: http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/123/flooring

UPS has leased a fleet of 42 electric vehicles for use in Northern California. The vehicles were acquired from Zap!, the electric car and truck company.

Link to the full article.

We got some nice coverage in the Taipei Times on the 25th of October.

 Most bamboo-clothing vendors are virtual stores, but Daniel Jacobs is the owner of Shirts of Bamboo, a bricks-and-mortar store in St Petersburg, Florida, that sells only bamboo clothing.

Full Article.

Boy to I wish that we carried these … a $4 Bamboo Microscope.

A non-profit group in India called Jodo Gyan is distributing these cheap microscopes to poor kids:

This nifty device is a product of the creative minds at Jodo Gyan, a small nonprofit in New Delhi. “Indian children are not getting to experience all the joy and wonder of science because there is too much emphasis on the memorization and repetition of concepts,” says Usha Menon, a government researcher who founded Jodo Gyan in 1999. “Hundreds of thousands of children are learning without understanding anything.”Priced at 150 rupees (roughly $4), the microscope is just one of the educational tools created by Jodo Gyan, literally translated as ‘linking knowledge’. Other tools include mathematical card and board games and sticky geometric shapes in a variety of colors. The 30-member group has also led more than 700 teacher-training workshops and runs an alternative primary school that enrolls 54 underprivileged students.

But the microscope remains the star attraction. Jodo Gyan has supplied the instrument to several organizations such as Chennai’s Goodbooks Teacher’s Center and New Delhi’s Pragya, a nonprofit that provides services to neglected, high-altitude areas. These organizations then distribute the microscopes to schools in their localities. Jodo Gyan has also secured two big orders in the last few years from the UN Children’s Fund for use in alternative learning centers in India.

Thanks to http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2007/11/4_bamboo_microscope.html for this one!

News from the web about the fiber development biz….

The driving force for the fiber development, especially in past two decades has been ever increasing application for natural material in non-conventional sector such as automotive components, medical textile, protective textile, geo-textile etc. These applications bring out the excellent performance such as heat reduction, comfortness, soft handle, breathable and biodegradable properties of the natural materials.

The work focuses on the comfortness of automobile seating made out of natural and bio- degradable materials through introducing natural materials for improving the seating comfort and the riders seating posture. Todays automobile manufactures seek more seating comfort for their customers in terms of reduction in body temperature, by providing anti bacterial base to control the bacteria generation through body perspiration, improving ergonomics of the seat and care of health.

Click here for the full article.

Sporting his favorite Shirts of Bamboo shirt (Tahiti Blue with the SOB logo), your editor visits Hale Pa’i O Lahainaluna (the Printing House at Lahainaluna School), the oldest printing press west of the Mississippi in 1834. Lahania used to be the first capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The musuem is located on the campus of the high school, so I’ve now seen the security at our high schools these days. I’d give you a link to the site, but there isn’t one devoted to the musuem, but there is one for the Lahaina Restoration Foundation: http://www.lahainarestoration.org/halepai.html. You can also check out all the other historic buildings in Lahaina by clicking on the “Historic Sites” link on the above site.

Maholo.

So — part of this trip and the experimentation with fabrics on the river had to do with the comparison of cotton, bamboo cotton blend, 100% bamboo, and the synthetics such as UnderArmor(tm).

Bamboo definitely has a place on the river. The question is where. Several of the seasoned rafters were excited to see, feel, and wear the bamboo (some had even surfed to the http://www.shirtsofbamboo.com website and were happy to feel me up). But the question loomed — compared to the synthetics — will it dry quickly?

The short answer is no, not as quickly. If you are on Class 4-5 rapids (on the 6 scale), or Class 7-10 rapids (on the 10 scale that the Grand Canyon uses) — stick to the synthetics. However, if you are on lower class rapids, the bamboo and bamboo/cotton blends do dry quicker than straight cotton, and they have the advantage of not starting to stink after one use.

So, let’s continue on the “doesn’t stink” thread with a little story. My first introduction to Shirts of Bamboo shirts was on a trip to Hawaii years ago with Dan (owner of Shirts of Bamboo) sent me a trial shirt to the condo I was staying at in Hawaii. I wore it one day… didn’t stink (in the tropical heat), so I wore it the next and again, it didn’t stink — and day three it still wasn’t standing by itself in the corner. By day 4, the person I was travelling with just didn’t want to look at the same shirt again — not that it stunk — because he was tired of blue.

So — the moral of this post is that for smaller rapids bamboo has better drying qualities than cotton — but it’s real strength is in “camp wear” — a shirt that can last 3-4 times as long as cotton before it starts to stink to high heaven.

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.

Welcome to the second installment of Grand Canyon Product Testing. Today’s subject are our towelettes.

The towelettes are the most amazing thing for the river — and speaking of the river, here is a shot of what happens if your compressed towelettes disc gets wet before you open it:

So the phrase, don’t try this at home applies.

Now let’s get back to the uses for these amazing little gems:

• Biodegradable kitchen towels — great for the river and keeping the sand out off the tables
• Wet them down and try them around your neck to keep cool
• Handy towel for washing in the river
• Butt Floss (see photo)

Well folks, I’m back from the Grand Canyon rafting experience mostly in one piece. Over the next several posts I’ll give you my impressions of how products from Shirts of Bamboo work in the wild and woolly world.

First — let’s start with the bandannas. I took two of the bandannas (Tahiti Blue and Bamboo Green) along on the trip. These turned out to be popular with not only me, but several others on the adventure. The uses?

• Head covering for the sun (no sunburn for my bald head)
• Around the neck for cooling
• As a wrap to keep my camera from getting banged around in the waterproof ammo can.

Of these, for me, most of the use was for keeping cool in the sun — just dip it in the 52 degree Colorado River water — and it keeps you cool for hours. The rest of the crew was clamoring for these soft, absorbent bandannas — too bad I only brought two — I could have given out a dozen!

Keep an eye out for our printed bandannas starting this fall.