Sustainable textiles

We want to create timeless and durable products for you and your home. Puuvillatehdas products are designed “collection free” and by listening to our customers’ wishes carefully so that we can offer the sustainably produced products you need and we will avoid producing extra stuff.

We do not have big discount sales, but we price our products so that they are always at the right price. We want sustainable textiles to be accessible to as many people as possible, and not just the privilege of a small group. We encourage the buyers to make only considered purchase decisions and engaging in taking care of the product. That’s why we strive for offering you the best possible care instruction for the product to prolong the life cycle of the product.

Puuvillatehdas is a trademark of Black Moda Oy. Read more about our sustainability and production here.

Puuvillatehdas is a trademark of Black Moda, a Finnish textile company. All Puuvillatehdas jersey products are produced in our own, Black Moda Portugal factory in Northern Portugal, in the town of Ponte de Lima. So we can proudly state that we have uniquely our own production and factory, where the jersey products are made. However, without partners, we could not offer our wide product range. Bathrobes, towels, bedsheets, woven garments, and knitwear are also produced in Northern Portugal, near our own factory.

People and their well-being are at the center of our responsibility because without them there would not be Puuvillatehdas products. Our own factory, Black Moda Portugal employed in a total of 71 different textile industry professionals from sewers to pattern makers, warehouse people, sales assistants, and production coordinators. Portugal is an EU country that is not classified as a risk country. In Portugal, working life is regulated by law and the authorities also monitor compliance with the law. Portugal has ratified the International Labor Organization (ILO) Treaties. In accordance with the principles of the ILO, all its Member States have a duty to eliminate forced labor, child labor, and discrimination and to guarantee freedom of association. Black Moda Portugal is a member of the Portuguese textile industry association, ANIVEC. All employment contracts are based on a collective agreement. The company pays collective wages to employees that are higher than the minimum wage set by the State. Portugal has a working time law and in industry, the working time is 40h / week. The law allows 2 overtime hours / working day, but Black Moda in Portugal does a maximum of 1 overtime hour / working day. Overtime is agreed with the employee and overtime pay is paid. In addition to their salary, all Black Moda Portugal employees receive a punctuality allowance of € 10 / month, holiday pay, and food allowance. In addition, seamstresses receive an incentive bonus, which can be a maximum of € 60 / month.

Almost all the products of Puuvillatehdas have an Oeko-tex Standard 100 class 1 certificate, which means that the products do not contain chemicals and heavy metal residues that are harmful to health and that their testing meets the requirements of, for example, EU REACH. The EU’s REACH regulation aims to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the potential risks of chemicals and to enhance the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. The cotton used in our jersey products has been BCI-certified cotton since the beginning of 2019.

All our jersey fabrics are produced by our long-tern partner, Armaco. In 2019, Armaco employed a total of 11 people, and cooperation with the company has continued since 1999. The fabrics are dyed and printed in a printing house located near Armaco. The printing house, which dyes and prints jersey fabrics, has a statutory water treatment plant with a pH adjustment system. At the wastewater treatment center, the water is pretreated before it is discharged to the city’s wastewater center. Color recipes are made using automation, so the loss of color chemicals is minimal. Dyes are treated in tubes so that they do not enter the respiratory tract. In addition, the printing house is GOTS-certified and has been a Bluesing partner since 2012. This partnership ensures that only products and dyes that have been properly tested and approved and do not contain substances harmful to humans or the environment are used in the dyeing and finishing process.

In our productions, we use surplus materials of our factory as often as we can. Fortunately, as the aim is to continuously improve the material efficiency of production, less surplus material is now being generated. Due to the limited amount of material, surplus products can often be produced in a very limited batch, so unfortunately we are not always able to offer products made of surplus materials in our online store, and the sizes available in these may also be smaller than normal.

At present, we mainly use GOTS-certified organic cotton purchased from a Turkish cotton wholesaler. GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) is the world’s leading standard for processing organic fiber textiles. Organic cotton fiber is further processed in northern Portugal, where it is spun into yarn or the yarn is imported already spun into Portugal. Basic yarns are usually spun in Turkey and special yarns such as custom and special blends in Portugal. The cotton we use has been BCI-certified since the beginning of 2019.