7 Tips For Purchasing Vegan-Friendly Clothing

For the vegans, changing the fashion world can be challenging since it can sometimes produce more questions than answers. Keeping this in mind, it can be challenging when you decide to purchase vegan-friendly clothing from eco-friendly fashion brands. Here is the guide to help you when purchasing the vegan-friendly clothing, thus help keep animals off your body and out of your closet.

Get to Know Your Fiber

GetVegan produces cotton, which is naturally a vegan’s best friend, for most of the clothing items can be made using cotton, and a lot of things already are. Apart from cotton, other vegan fibers include linen, spandex, polyester, lycra, bamboo, ramie, hemp, nylon, denim, rayon, PVC, Tyvek, microfiber, acrylic, cork, modal, and viscose. Materials that often include animal products include wool, cashmere, alpaca, silk, suede, leather, down, angora, maribou, mohair, alligator, stingray, pashmina, kangaroo, and shearling, and anything that has got animal’s name in it.

Always Read Garments

Reading garment’s label is somehow like reading assembled furniture instructions, and checking if the label lists all the parts of the garment is fundamental. When you read labels, check out for categories such as the lining, outer shell, and quilting. When there is no materials list found, look for the care instruction label. Most animal materials are required to be dry-cleaned, whereas modern synthetics and most of the plant materials are made for machine washing. Furthermore, check out for blends. For instance, a sweater can contain 75-percent acrylic and 15-percent mohair. Other commonly known combinations are the cotton and wool and silk and organic cotton.

Understand your garments

Another way to know the risks when shopping is to understand the standards. For instance, the t-shirts are usually cotton, but the suits are generally wool, meaning when you are shopping for a suit, you will be required to check out for linen, cotton, or synthetic option. The other commonly known clothing items are the vegan shoes and belts, mostly leather, and they might contain leather in the sole. However, ties are still mostly made from silk, but it can be found in silky appearance thanks to rayon, nylon, and polyester.

Feel Out Your Fabric

Selecting out the authentic materials from animals to the faux ones is the most common challenge you will face. Always be aware that real fur usually feels more like your hair and has got a growth direction, but the faux fur usually feels more like a shag carpet and sewn in straight rows. Real fur usually grows out of natural animal skin, but the synthetic leathers and fur have a fabric backing that is typically white, and you can see the stitching.

Check for the Details

Most times, leather, fur, and other things may be added onto clothing in areas you do not see until you arrive home. Therefore, always look for any trim of fur, leather label on jeans, the leather pocket details, horn or shell buttons, and the fur pom-poms on the scarves and hats. Other accents that are frequently overlooked are the leather pulls on zippers and the feathers in hats.

Check for vintage

The use of animal trims and details were mostly every day in the past. Therefore, the older it is, the more it is likely to be made from animals. That goes for items such as the wool sweaters and coats, the leather and felt hats, and the fur trims. While pearls are usually plastic or glass, check-out for horns and Mother of Pearl is found mostly on the buttons of the shirt, purses, and jewelry.

Purchase from the Local or Trusted Sources

Nothing can beat purchasing from a specifically vegan business or from the people who make the clothing themselves. However, not all the occasions or the budgets allow for vegan. Whether you are shopping online or in-person, always ask questions, and inquire about the materials. Researching will help you check GetVegan companies, the shopping guides, and other vegan clothing resources.