A friend of mine was wearing a t-shirt recently that I really liked and it turned out to be by a company called The Hot Love Movement. I was intrigued by their name and the t-shirt so I checked them out at their website - thehotlovemovement.com

 

What these people are doing is pretty cool. They make t-shirts that are organic cotton, made in the United States, and dyed and printed with low impact fiber reactive dyes, which is something I was not familiar with. It turns out this process of dying and printing is a much friendlier to the environment, mainly because it is water based and there is no plastisol. Plastisol is the conventional ink used in screen printing. It contains a number of harmful chemicals such as PVC and phthalates, which if burned pollute the atmosphere and if buried take forever to decompose and eventually leak into the soil and water supply. So any t-shirts printed with the conventional stuff will be in the land fill long after any of us are gone.

 

I bought one of The Hot Love Movement tees as well, and as a costumer I feel very good about buying their product, for a number of reasons. First I support organic agriculture. It turns out organic cotton makes up around only 1% or 2% of the world’s cotton production and unfortunately the non-organic cotton is the second most chemically treated crop in the world. Then I support ethical labor laws and our country’s economy since my tee was made in the United States. I also support a positive environmental change, since the product was made using more environmentally conscious materials. And at $25 per t-shirt my wallet was extra happy as well. Finally eco-friendly is no longer only for the rich. And I hope that they keep their prices reasonable.

 

Now did I mention that I learned all the info about the cotton and the plastisol from their website? The Hot Love Movement has piled up a hefty amount of info on their website to educate their costumers. Reading all the info on their website actually made me do more search on cotton, organic agriculture and plastisol.

 

But wait it gets better. All of their tees have socially, politically and environmentally driven messages. Most t-shirts of such sort that I have seen being sold at rallies and protests look really boring and tasteless. Not these babies! I actually like rocking my Hot Love Movement t-shirt on my chest. It looks cool and it fits nice, snug and sexy. And in addition to that it does not shrink when I wash it and I can iron right over the graphic design without worrying that it will stick to my iron.

 There is also an e-zine on their website – The Hot Love Daily. And it consists of articles on current events and news contributed by regular people. There are 4 categories in the e-zine: Love, Peace, Sustain and Express. It is updated on regular basis and I can find info there on anything from eco-fashion to the presidential elections in Zimbabwe. And that’s pretty cool if you ask me.