Hemp: This area is Non-Smoking

Mention hemp fabric, and I picture of folks up in Nimbin sitting on a balcony watching over a field of feisty green plants. They have just finished a hard day’s work in the field, and are now stitching together some beige itchy looking clothes made from a good part of an earlier harvest, whilst smoking the rest.

This, it turns out, is pure fantasy. Although hemp and marijuana both come from plants of the cannabis genus, the big difference is, the hemp used for industrial production (Cannabis sativa L. subsp. sativa var. sativa) won’t get you high. Or if you like, marijuana (C. sativa subsp. indica) will.1

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Boo to Smelly Feet

How do your feet smell after an hour long power walk? Mine are usually a bit iffy. Not tonight – I’m wearing my new BooSox, made from bamboo fibre.

BooSox is a registered Trade Mark of C the Difference Pty Ltd. An Australian business, C Difference was started a couple of years ago by guys who, like me, were seduced by bamboo towels. Impressed by the absorbency, they set about testing sock prototypes until they came up with BooSox. Prototypes for socks - who knew?

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New Bamboo

What do you think of when you hear the word bamboo? Pandas? Backyard makeover shows? Or maybe even flooring? It’s probably not fabric.

For me its scaffolding. There was a time in my life when I was on a plane going somewhere almost every week – and everywhere I went, I would turn on CNN*. CNN was like a kind of English speaking buddy during my travels, and it would almost without fail have on a documentary about bamboo scaffolding. It was kind of interesting the first few times.

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