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Reading a Cotton Label Properly

Cotton Guide 06·Certification Guide·3 min
Why Certifications Exist

A Cotton Label Alone Tells You Almost Nothing

"Cotton" on a care label says nothing about how it was grown or processed. Certifications exist to verify specific claims — and they're not interchangeable with one another.

GOTS — Global Organic Textile Standard

Covers farm through finished product, including social criteria like labor rights, wages, and facilities. It's the most comprehensive organic certification available, and commands the largest certification price premium as a result.

OCS — Organic Content Standard

Tracks and verifies organic material content from farm to final product, but doesn't cover social criteria or the full processing chain the way GOTS does. Simpler scope, narrower guarantee.

GRS — Global Recycled Standard

Verifies recycled content percentage and chain of custody, for both post-industrial and post-consumer sources. This is a completely separate framework from GOTS/OCS — a garment can't carry both GOTS and GRS claims for the same fiber component.

Better Cotton (BCI) and OEKO-TEX

Better Cotton verifies farm-level improvements — measurable reductions in water and pesticide use — but it is not an organic certification and doesn't guarantee zero synthetic inputs. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests the finished fabric for harmful substances — it's a safety certification, not a sustainability one, and says nothing about how the fiber was farmed.

Farm to Product + SocialGOTS Covers
Fiber Content OnlyOCS Covers
Recycled ContentGRS Covers

Reading a Label Without Getting Fooled

Look for the specific certification name and logo — not just the word "organic" or "sustainable" on its own. Unverified claims aren't backed by the same third-party audits that GOTS, OCS, and GRS require.

Materials Encyclopedia

Cotton in the Materials Encyclopedia

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