Sustainable Living: Hemp And Linen From Kichi Home
In this post I want talk about the company, which has recently caught my attention. It is called Kichi Home and it produces one-of-a-kind home textile collections made of natural fabrics – hemp and linen. As I mentioned before in the previous posts, I am head over heels for those materials and I was very excited to learn about new possible ways to use them in home decor.
Their signature products are elegant accessories for bathrooms and saunas made of organic hemp:
Hemp is soft, warm, light and rot resistant. Its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties make it perfect to use in bathrooms and outdoors. Hemp naturally has very high water-absorbing properties: shower curtain made of this material will get wet but will not leak. Also they do not shrink and do not deform and last longer than any other organic fabric. Hemp blocks most UV-rays, so it is great to use it as curtains and window treatments in patios and terraces.
When talking hemp, many of us picture it as rough, burlap-looking fabric. In fact, with modern technologies of textile manufacturing and colouring, this idea is very far from reality. Depending on the design, hemp fabrics can be easily incorporated in any style: from masculine minimalism to country romanticism.
Hemp is purely sustainable material as it grows very fast and it requires only third of the water needed to grow cotton. Hemp plants grow close to each other and crowd out weeds, which makes the use of herbicides unnecessary. They are also resistant to most pests, thus they do not require pesticides.
Hemp fabrics are very easy to care – enough to throw them in the washing machine practically under any regime. You need to remember though, that for coloured fabrics or fabrics with block printing the temperature must be no more than 40 degrees. Bleach is also not recommended to use as it will weaken the fibers.
Unlike hemp, which production is restricted in many countries by legislation and thereby it is quite rare on the market, linen remains the most popular natural textile used in home decor. Linen products for home cover window treatments, bed linen, table cloths, decorative cushions, etc.
The advantages of this fabric include its durability, strength, luxurious look, supple texture, easiness to drape and maintain. Same as hemp, linen has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties: bed linen made of it has not only beautiful aesthetics but positive effect on human health as well. The only downside of linen is that it creases easily and can be rough to touch, though the last one is easy to eliminate after several washings (linen becomes softer with frequent laundering).
Linen is produced from the long fibers of flax plants. Though it is not difficult to grow them, it is time and labor consuming to separate the delicate fibers: quite surprisingly this process is still done by hand. This explains the high price of this fabric, though its wonderful properties and unique appearance make it worth it.
The rough texture of linen make it too stiff and scratchy to sleep on it, that’s why many manufacturers learned how to make it softer mechanically. The most expensive and the most luxurious is a stone-washed linen which is many times softer than cotton or any other fabric.
Linen is able to absorb a large amount of water, so it has found many ways of use in bathrooms and saunas. In the kitchen linen is irreplaceable as well: it is suitable for tablecloths, napkins, and towels. Usually, these items require frequent washing and linen is, perhaps, the best material which is able to withstand it without losing its attractiveness. Despite there is a huge variety of table dressings available on the market, for me the most elegant and the most luxurious remains a pure white, crispy, linen tablecloth:
