Onion

Onion’s ran­ge of yarn is made and dyed in Ita­ly by small fami­ly busi­nesses which all prio­ri­ti­se good working con­di­ti­ons. They are deve­lo­ped spe­ci­fi­cal­ly for Oni­on accor­ding to the brand’s cri­te­ria for qua­li­ty and sus­taina­bi­li­ty. This Danish brand have also deve­lo­ped their own colour com­bi­na­ti­ons. Oni­on have a very clo­se rela­ti­onship with their sup­pli­ers, which here at COSH! we who­le­he­ar­ted­ly appro­ve of.

The raw mate­ri­als used in their yarn come from all around the world. The wool is from South Ame­ri­ca, the nett­les are from Chi­na, the mohair wool is from South Afri­ca, and the orga­nic cot­ton is from India and Tur­key. Oni­on gua­ran­tees, howe­ver, that all of the­se fibres are extra­c­ted and coll­ec­ted with respect for peo­p­le and the envi­ron­ment.

Onion’s yarn coll­ec­tion is all from natu­ral fibres and does not con­tain any arti­fi­ci­al fibres, such as nylon. A bonus is that most of their coll­ec­tion is also orga­nic. Orga­nic far­ming does not use harmful pesti­ci­des or GMOs (gene­ti­cal­ly modi­fied orga­nisms) making it much kin­der on the environment.

In addi­ti­on to wool made from 100% orga­nic wool and orga­nic cot­ton, Onion’s coll­ec­tion also fea­tures mixed yarn made from cot­ton, hemp and modal, among others.

Hemp is a very strong fib­re, which helps garm­ents keep their shape for lon­ger and makes them more endu­ring. This brand also uses nett­le fibres in its wool yarn. Nett­les grow par­ti­cu­lar­ly quick­ly and requi­re litt­le main­ten­an­ce making them very han­dy. Sting­ing nett­le fibres are also very strong, making them the per­fect yarn for a pair of socks.

Oni­on also pro­po­ses yarn made by mixing orga­nic cot­ton with meri­no wool. This com­bi­na­ti­on is par­ti­cu­lar­ly soft and not itchy – ide­al for baby and children’s clo­thes, cushions, blan­kets and jum­pers.

Orga­nic sheep’s wool and alpa­ca wool is also on offer. Alpa­ca wool is incre­di­bly soft, even sof­ter than meri­no wool, and stron­ger and war­mer than sheep’s wool. It’s gre­at if you feel the cold easily.

Here at COSH!, we’re gene­ral­ly not big fans of mixed mate­ri­als becau­se it makes them more dif­fi­cult to recy­cle. Howe­ver, with wool we will make an excep­ti­on. Adding hemp, cot­ton or nett­le to the yarn makes the wool much stron­ger making a much more dura­ble pair of socks, t‑shirt or children’s clo­thes. So don’t panic if you see that it’s com­po­sed of dif­fe­rent mate­ri­als – it’s exten­ding the life­span of your knit­ted pro­duct and it’s super sus­tainable becau­se no new raw mate­ri­als have been extracted.

Despi­te the fact that the raw fibres tra­vel quite the distance, the spin­ning and colou­ring of Onion’s yarn is all done on a very small sca­le in Ita­ly. The yarn is also only sold in Euro­pe, fur­ther cut­ting down on its foot­print. Onion’s plant-based yarn is for sale in Den­mark, Swe­den, Nor­way, Fin­land, Ice­land, the Faroe Islands, the Net­her­lands, and, of cour­se, Belgium.

The 100% orga­nic cot­ton yarn is ani­mal-fri­end­ly and vegan. The yarn con­tai­ning sheep and alpa­ca wool is, of cour­se, not vegan. Howe­ver, Oni­on real­ly care about ani­mal wel­fa­re so they choo­se orga­nic wool pro­du­cers who should tre­at their sheep bet­ter than regu­lar sheep far­mers. Their meri­no wool is also cer­ti­fied to be mule­sing-free. Never heard of mule­sing? Learn about this prac­ti­ce in our blog post on the topic.

Oni­on does not tole­ra­te ani­mal cruel­ty so you don’t need to fear for the wel­fa­re of the sheep.