Hot Ideas For Warming Your Hands This Winter With Gloves Made Of Organic and Natural Fibers

With one of the coldest and snowiest winters in decades, our winter gloves are going through a lot of wear, and I’ve found a lot of companies in the search for new gloves that are either made of natural or organic fibers, and are really warm and durable.

I found several boutiques – the Wild West Alpaca Ranch Store, Awaz Handcrafts, and Patricia Avenue – all specializing in handmade, natural fiber knit products.

Alpaca Driving Gloves with Leather Palms.

At all the outlets, the glove styles include those with and without fingers, as well as mittens.

The looks range from really rugged to highly elegant. Besides gloves, all of the outlets also have great natural and organic clothes and other apparel, as well as household items, but here we’re just going to look the gloves.

Wild West Alpaca Ranch Store

The Wild West Alpaca Ranch Store is a great place to find gloves and other apparel made of natural alpaca fiber, which include: hats, scarves, wraps, purses, and socks.

Alpaca Driving Gloves with Leather Palms.

The store is an outlet of the Alpaca Breeders of Arizona (ABA), which is a cooperative group of alpaca owners and breeders in state that collaborate to sell alpaca made products and promote awareness about the sustainability and health benefits of alpaca materials. All of the products are made in the United States.

There’s a lot to know about alpaca. The ABA explains some of the benefits of alpaca fibers, including that they are hypoallergenic, anti-microbial, and naturally odor resistant.

Also, alpaca doesn’t contain Lanolin oil, which many people are allergic to. Alpaca is also soft, naturally water-repellent, and non-itchy, unlike wool.

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Vintage Fashions Theme For Opening Runway Show At Vancouver Eco-Fashion Week

Opening this season’s Vancouver Eco Fashion Week  (April 10 – 12) will be a vintage runway show presented by the mega-thrift store Value Village. The store also carries modern designer name brands including Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, Reitmans, and Eddie Bauer.

Value Village’s show was considered the ideal opening event because the store epitomizes many of the core values of the week, which include bringing new life to what already exists, keeping clothing out of landfills as long as possible, as well as supporting local community and global business initiatives.

The thrift store chain purchases its merchandise though “working relationships with 140 nonprofit partners across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Over the past 10 years, we’ve paid more than $1 billion.” said Value Village.

The chain explains how they acquire their merchandise, saying, “Our nonprofit partners contact people in the community to ask for donations of reusable clothing and household items.

“We then pay our nonprofit partners based on the number of boxes and bags of merchandise they deliver to us. Additionally, we also pay them for donations delivered directly to our stores via our community donation centers. Our staff sorts through the donations to select the highest quality reusable items, then prices, and displays them.”

Besides clothes, Value Village sells merchandise includes: shoes, toys, books, kitchenware, sporting goods, infant products, suitcases, electronics, wicker items, furniture, and collectables.

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Fashion Seeing An Explosion of Styles Emerging in Hats Made With Eco-Friendly Materials

I love hats, especially eco-friendly hats because they boost my style, and they limit harm to the environment.

Eco-Friendly Wool Felt Hat from Millinerium.

Today, eco-friendly hats are made in every style. The only real differences between hats made the eco-friendly way and ones made the traditional way are the materials they use and the processes used to make them

Right now, there are eco-friendly hats for every personality – whether you’re fashion sense is really flamboyant, chic, retro, urban or classic conservative.

When looking to buy an eco-made hat, the challenge is no longer finding the right style to suit your tastes and needs, but finding one at all! It’s often considered a specialty item, and most conventional retail stores don’t carry them. Online is often your best option, and I found three places that have some of the hugest collections of eco-hats: Millinerium, hats.com, and JustSayHats.com.

Millinerium

Millinerium is great because it’s a women’s boutique site from Ginger Strand, a designer exclusively devoted to making eco-made hats.  

Millinerium’s collection runs the full gamut from street hats to fascinators (the tiny hats that Kate Middleton wears) to wedding headpieces.

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