At the mention of the words “hemp plant”, most people start to think about CBD oil, but hemp plant is not for making CBD oil only; it also produces fabric used in making clothing.
Some other fabrics used in making clothes include cotton, linen, wool, and polyester. Generally, clothes made of these fabrics are cheaper than clothes made of hemp.
Hemp clothes are ideal for natural environment sustenance. Hemp fabric is natural, lightweight, and breathable, but its cost usually makes many people avoid it.
1. Hemp Fibers Aren’t Produced in Massive Quantities
Although humans have been aware of the diverse benefits of growing hemp plants, they have been met with violent opposition from governments.
Hemp clothes are made from hemp fibers, and hemp fibers are gotten from the hemp plant [1]. But then the hemp plant is not grown on a big scale world over.
As a result, the clothes made of hemp end up being priced way above so that the clothes maker recover production costs and still earn a profit.
The world’s leading producers of hemp fiber are North Korea, the Netherlands, and China, but the total hemp fibers produced yearly are around sixty to sixty-five thousand tons.
In comparison with other fibers like cotton and flax, which are produced by millions of tons each year, hemp fibers production is abysmally low.
But the thing is, many countries are waking up to the amazing contributions of the hemp plant, and they are licensing their farmers to grow hemp plants on a large scale.
The US is positioned to become a leading source of hemp fibers soon, as its farmers are shifting to hemp plant growing.
2. Low Publicity of Hemp
Generally, people lean toward items that everybody else wants. In that regard, hemp fabrics are not as popular as the alternatives like cotton and polyester.
And while everybody else ignores hemp fabrics and buys the alternative, the hemp clothes industry is threatened, thus the need to raise the prices.
If the prices were low, the clothe makers might not get profits, and the hemp clothes industry would probably fade from sight.
However, as more people become familiar with hemp products, and as the production of hemp fabrics soars, soon there’ll be a buzz around hemp fabrics.
And this would be critical in making hemp clothes popular, and this would stabilize the hemp clothes economy, and eventually, the prices would come down.
3. They are Eco-Friendly
You need to recognize the fact that industrial procedures involve various elements that harm the natural environment.
And so, when you have a natural fiber like hemp, which hardly conforms to industrial processes, the quick fixes are shut out.
It causes the clothing maker to go the long and hard route to improve the quality of hemp fabric and create quality clothes.
The inability to leverage these industrial processes ultimately increases production costs, and thus the burden has to be shifted to the buyer.
But on the plus side, since hemp fabrics are not subjected to numerous industrial processes, they become ideal for preserving the environment [2].
These days, more people are paying attention to the negative effects of our industries upon the natural world, and more people are being drawn to eco-friendly lifestyles.
And so, hemp clothes have started becoming a statement, an allegiance to the mission of preserving our natural world.
Why Do Hemp Clothes Have a Low Reputation?
One of the things that governments do upon banning a substance is engage in propaganda warfare to discredit the banned substance.
For instance, upon banning hemp, governments made zero effort to distinguish the hemp plant from the marijuana plant.
The association of hemp clothes with marijuana has influenced people to have a low opinion about hemp clothes, discard hemp clothes, and campaign against them.
But such people act from ignorance. Even though the hemp plant and the marijuana plant share familial ties, these plants couldn’t be more different.
The main product of the hemp plant; CBD, has no psychoactive effects [3]. In other words, CBD can’t get you high, but on the other hand, marijuana causes psychoactive effects.
Marijuana is still a taboo in many parts of the world, and anything associated with marijuana can suffer a similar fate. But thankfully, a lot of progress is being done, as more studies come to light regarding the true potential of cannabis.
Soon, the hemp plant will likely cease being an object of mockery.
Can Hemp Fabric Substitute Cotton?
Cotton is probably the most used fabric in making clothes. Assuming that the world embraces hemp growing, is there a chance that hemp would replace cotton?
This is not something that can be determined with certainty, but although cotton is very malleable and agrees with most industrial processes, times are changing.
When humans have trashed the planet far too much, and the effects threaten our existence, we might be forced to turn to eco-friendly options.
In that case, hemp clothes, which are natural, lightweight, and sustainable, would be ideal as opposed to the cheap option in cotton clothes.
As the annual hemp fiber production grows, it will lead to a massive hemp fiber economy and the prices will go down.
The Takeaway: Why Hemp Clothes are Expensive
Cotton, linen, and flax are some of the mainstream fabrics for making clothes. The hemp fabric, even though it has been around for a long time, pales in comparison. Clothes made out of hemp are more expensive than clothes made of other fabrics because of low hemp fiber output, low publicity around hemp clothes, and the fact that hemp clothes are eco-friendly.
Sources
- Musio, S., Müssig, J., & Amaducci, S. (2018). Optimizing hemp fiber production for high performance composite applications. Frontiers in plant science, 9, 1702.
- Bifulco, A., Silvestri, B., Passaro, J., Boccarusso, L., Roviello, V., Branda, F., & Durante, M. (2020). A New Strategy to Produce Hemp Fibers through a Waterglass-Based Ecofriendly Process. Materials, 13(8), 1844.
- Martínez, V., Iriondo De-Hond, A., Borrelli, F., Capasso, R., Del Castillo, M. D., & Abalo, R. (2020). Cannabidiol and Other Non-Psychoactive Cannabinoids for Prevention and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders: Useful Nutraceuticals?. International journal of molecular sciences, 21(9), 3067.