Rid your home of synthetics, plastics, and waste
Earth Day is everyday - Choose Natural Fibers For Your Home!
We didn’t create Sonoma Wool Company just to put another widget on the market...
We created it to help people
Re-Discover the Wonders of Wool!
The greatest
Wonder of Wool:
It's a biodegradable,
completely sustainable,
Earth-friendly fiber!
Once a year, the sheep receive their "hair cut", and will grow it all back by the following year.
The sheep are not harmed in this process - in fact, it is completely beneficial to them, keeping them light and comfortable in the summer heat. Once they are sheared, the wool is cleaned and sent to either our felting mills or sewing rooms to be made in to our products.
Here are a few tips on how to use Wonderful Wool to upgrade your home to being more eco-friendly.
Tip #1 - Check the Tags!
Often our bedrooms and clothes closets are overlooked when it comes to being eco-minded. Sure, we have become more conscious of the harsh, detrimental realities of “fast fashion” brands, but the more I learn about natural fibers, the more I find myself checking the tag on everything I purchase and own. During my first winter on the East Coast, I was cold all the time, and when I started layering, I just got uncomfortable, sweaty even - there seemed to be no happy medium.
Then I learned about wool.
Wool’s comfort can’t be beat, and it’s true heroic deed is its ability to be layered without making me feel sweaty! It breathes. Wool’s fibers allow for air to pass in and out, and it keeps me very comfortable, no matter the outside temperature. When I pair all natural cotton and linen with my wool garments, I know I’m taking care of both myself, and the environment. Now, I may look crazy to others as I eagerly check tags on every piece of clothing that catches my eye, but it’s worth it! It feels great to purchase and choose to wear only natural fibers.
Your bedding is just as important (if not more, as we spend almost a third of our lives in bed), as what you wear, so applying this new “checking the tag” lifestyle to your bedding is key.
Just as with clothing, wool’s “breathe-ability”, is what makes sleeping in wool bedding far superior to any other fiber. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat? This is often because your bedding is made of synthetic materials, like polyester. Polyester does not breathe, so there is no place for the trapped heat from your body to go.
The Sonoma Wool Company bedding products can help with that. Surround yourself top-to-bottom with wool; your body (and sleep cycle) will thank you. Trust me, sleeping on a Wool Mattress Topper is like sleeping on a cloud. To complete your bedding, be sure to use all-natural fibers for your sheets, such as linen - which has similar breath-ability traits as wool.
Surrounding yourself with natural fibers, like wool, cotton, and linen, offers more comfort to you personally - but supporting these types of fabrics also makes way for a better Earth. Wool in particular breaks down quickly in the compost pile at the end of its life. With Sonoma Wool Company products, we never use any chemicals to coat our wool, and only source the finest quality cotton and linen. Synthetic, or man-made materials take more than 30 years in a landfill before they start to decompose - and in their creation and death, they leave chemicals and other hazardous wastes behind. In these times, our choices mean everything!
Tip #2 - Look for Sustainability in your whole kitchen, not just in your food!
As you continue to upgrade your kitchen to its “green” potential, look beyond the fridge - to dish ware, and better yet, the “greenest” tools to care for them! Glass vessels, stainless steel containers, porcelain bakeware and wooden utensils have seemed to creep back into popularity as more and more people learn about the harmful effects that plastic can have on the environment, and on our health. Round out these natural products in your kitchen with our best selling Wool Dish Drying Mat with Linen Sleeve. The functionality surpasses that of micro-fiber mats, and the aesthetics are much finer than those ugly mold-forming plastic racks sitting next to your sink.
Wool and linen are the best fibers to use for a dish drying mat. Wool absorbs up to 30% of its own weight in water, and moisture evaporates quickly from both wool and linen! Wool resists mold and mildew, and is even fire retardant. The aesthetically beautiful all-natural element is just the cherry on top to the benefits piled high on the number of reasons, functionally, Wool is the best fiber for this job.
Tip #3 - Don't forget about your pets!
It drives me crazy to go down the pet aisle at my local store and not find natural options for my dog. Sure, the food options have gotten better over the years, but as far as toys, most of them have plastic attached, and it seems to me that all of them are made with chemicals and dyes.
This just isn't something I want my dog chewing on! Trying to live a green lifestyle has to trickle down in to every part of our lives - especially the furry ones.
We created 100% pure wool pet toys, free of chemicals, plastics and dyes, that are just as sustainable and environmentally friendly as the wool on a sheeps back.
Wool makes for a perfect companion for pets that like to bat balls back and forth, or naw them to shreds. They're tried and true, too - our part German Shepard, part Black Lab loves her wool ball, and it's durability is clear with the amount of chomping she does!
I am a firm believer that wool products are an upgrade to synthetics - natural, sustainable, practical! It's why we're on a journey to help others Re-Discover the Wonders of Wool!
It's incredible how versatile wool can be. We are constantly researching different ways that wool can enhance our modern homes. We are incredibly passionate about creating sustainably minded products out of this super fiber. I am convinced that wool has a special place in every home - from insulation to dog beds, and we look forward to rolling out new product lines!
Our hope is to continue to educate consumers on the benefits of wool when compared to synthetic fibers. It's breathability comes from the structure of wool's fibers at a molecular level. Allowing air to circulate gives way for many of the Wonders of Wool. Proper ventilation makes sure that your body stays asleep when sleeping in wool. You don't get overheated, the hot air is allowed to escape, and cool air is allowed in. This is what makes wool dust mite and bed bug resistant too. These kinds of minuscule critters are thrive in warm, moist places. Wool's fibers encourage moisture evaporation, wicking away water, and that constant air flow in and out, creates the perfect dry environment, that these critters won't move in to. Wool is mold and mildew resistant too, because of this same breathability. It's incredible!
Wool helps sheep keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer, it keeps them dry and microbial free, we are just lucky to get to enjoy this fiber. The way that wool is "harvested" from the sheep is completely harmless - it's really more of a hair cut. Once a year, the ewes (female sheep) get brought in to the barn and go through the process of shearing. The shearers that we work with at our home ranch are highly professional, and treat each ewe with the respect they deserve. Over time, our domestication of sheep has created a dependency on them getting sheared once a year. If they didn't, their wool would overgrow, weigh them down, and become very uncomfortable. This long held symbiotic relationship that ranchers have grown to have with sheep is special, which is why our over arching goal is to help people Re-Discover the Wonders of Wool, something we believe has been
The choices that we make now will affect the outlook of our future. Making sure that the products we use, the clothing we wear, the brands we support, are held to high environmental standards, is a way that we can ensure a clean Earth for the next generation.
- Kelsie Greene, Media Manager, Sonoma Wool Company
To contact Kelsie about this, or any other woolly thought you may have, feel free to email her at kelsie@sonomawoolcompany.com.
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