Humdakin

Hum­da­kin has its pro­ducts made in fac­to­ries across Euro­pe and Asia; exact names of count­ries or fac­to­ries are not known. Howe­ver, Hum­da­kin does say that they have good and long-term rela­ti­onships with the pro­du­cers. They also say they have insight into the working con­di­ti­ons of the fac­to­ries. When sel­ec­ting part­ners, Hum­da­kin looks to see if they are actively working toward the UN SDGs or have a stra­tegy to impro­ve their fac­to­ry both envi­ron­men­tal­ly and labor-wise over the years.

Hum­da­kin also works a lot with GOTS (Glo­bal Orga­nic Tex­ti­le Stan­dard) cer­ti­fied sup­pli­ers for their cot­ton pro­ducts. This cer­ti­fi­ca­te veri­fies not only the orga­nic ori­gin of the mate­ri­al but also the working con­di­ti­ons throug­hout the pro­duc­tion chain. So for the cot­ton pro­ducts that come from GOTS-cer­ti­fied sup­pli­ers, we are more cer­tain that they are made in fair working con­di­ti­ons than other pro­ducts. This is becau­se the other sup­pli­ers are not audi­ted for this by a third party. 

To do its part, Hum­da­kin dona­tes DKK 5 to the Danish cha­ri­ty ​“Børns Vil­kår” or ​“Bør­neT­ele­fo­nen” with every sale of child­ren’s pro­ducts. In this way they want to give child­ren in Den­mark bet­ter chan­ces for a good life.

Hum­da­kin makes many dif­fe­rent types of pro­ducts and depen­ding on the pro­duct cate­go­ry cer­tain mate­ri­als or ingre­di­ents are used.

The cot­ton items such as aprons, oven gloves, table­cloths, tea towels, towels, clea­ning wipes and Christ­mas tree orna­ments are made from GOTS-cer­ti­fied orga­nic cot­ton. Want to learn more about the bene­fits of orga­nic cot­ton? Read this blog. Some pro­ducts are made from Oeko-tex cer­ti­fied mate­ri­als, which means that the­re are no sub­s­tances in the finis­hed pro­ducts that can harm your health. 

To clean your eating uten­sils pro­per­ly, Hum­da­kin has biode­gra­da­ble dish­wa­shing brushes in its ran­ge. In this, two vari­ants are available, one with a brush made of hor­se­hair and one with a brush made of vegan tam­pi­co bristles.

Hum­da­kin also has, among other things, buckets to store your clea­ning pro­ducts made of zinc, soap hol­ders made of brass and steel, and bowls and bath­room access­ories made of ter­raz­zo. The woo­den pro­ducts are FSC-cer­ti­fied and thus come from sus­tain­ab­ly mana­ged forests.

The cand­les Hum­da­kin sells are made of stearin, rape­seed oil or kero­se­ne, so depen­ding on the type of cand­le it is more dura­ble or less dura­ble. Of the­se three types, rape­seed oil is the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly and healt­hy opti­on. You can read more about eco­lo­gi­cal cand­les here. Hum­da­kin’s cand­les are aller­gy-fri­end­ly cer­ti­fied by the Nor­dic Swan eco-label and the wicks for light­ing are made of Oeko-tex cer­ti­fied cotton.

Per­haps the pro­ducts Hum­da­kin is best known for are its clea­ning pro­ducts, hand soap, lotion and natu­ral bath bombs. Hum­da­kin descri­bes its pro­ducts as aller­gy-fri­end­ly, mild and free of para­bens, dyes, essen­ti­al oils, che­mi­cal per­fu­me, endo­cri­ne dis­rup­t­ors and car­ci­no­gens, and pre­ser­va­ti­ves such as SLS, MI and M1. The pro­ducts are der­ma­to­lo­gi­cal­ly tested. 

In the pro­ducts you will find love­ly Scan­di­na­vi­an scents, such as cha­mo­mi­le and sea buckthorn.

Howe­ver, the­se pro­ducts do not have lar­ge­ly natu­ral or biode­gra­da­ble for­mu­las, nor are they cer­ti­fied for this. For exam­p­le, the hand gel and lotion con­tain trietha­nol­ami­ne, a pol­lu­ting che­mi­cal accor­ding to the Clean Beau­ty app. It is used to adjust the pH of the pro­duct for use on the skin. The hand soap also con­ta­ins some syn­the­tic con­tro­ver­si­al ingre­di­ents accor­ding to the Clean Beau­ty app inclu­ding phen­oxy­etha­nol and poly­ethy­le­ne glycol.

All of Hum­da­kin’s cot­ton pro­ducts are recy­clable after use becau­se they are 100% sin­gle mate­ri­al. In addi­ti­on, becau­se they con­sist of natu­ral mate­ri­als, they are also biodegradable.

The dish­wa­shing brushes con­sist of 100% biode­gra­da­ble mate­ri­als. This is gre­at com­pared to the many pla­s­tic dish­wa­shing brushes on the mar­ket! Alt­hough woo­den dish­wa­shing brushes with a replaceable brush are also very durable.

The pack­a­ging of the clea­ning pro­ducts and soaps are made of PET pla­s­tic. This is a reusable/​recyclable mate­ri­al. At COSH! we reg­ret that Hum­da­kin did not go for a recy­cled alter­na­ti­ve here.

It is dif­fi­cult to veri­fy how long the chain of Hum­da­kin’s pro­ducts is. They indi­ca­te that they work with sup­pli­ers scat­te­red throug­hout Euro­pe and Asia, but we do not know which count­ries or exact sup­pli­ers are invol­ved. The path the pro­ducts take can be lon­ger or shorter for each pro­duct. Most pro­ducts are trans­por­ted via truck or ship to mini­mi­ze air trans­port emissions.

In terms of trans­pa­ren­cy, the­re is still a lot of room for impro­ve­ment for Hum­da­kin. They pro­fi­le them­sel­ves as a sus­tainable brand on their web­site, but they do not com­mu­ni­ca­te open­ly about their pro­duc­tion methods and loca­ti­ons. As a result, COSH! finds litt­le evi­dence of their ethi­cal­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble pro­duc­tion. Also, the cer­ti­fi­ca­te num­bers of their GOTS-cer­ti­fied sup­pli­ers are not pro­vi­ded on the website.