By Akanksha Nair @realtickletickle
Why focusing on gender neutral affordable clothing, nudged us to take things in our own hand and create a UAE local sustainable brand – Tickle Tickle Organic Essentials.
As a girl or boy growing up in a society, we are influenced heavily by what marketing companies want us to believe. A simple thing as color gets complicated when gender is used by brands to market their products and increase revenue.
Centuries ago, white was a predominant neutral color for both genders as it resembled purity.
With the advent of pastel colors , blue was originally preferred for girls, as it was dainty and soothing and pink was chosen for boys, as it was seen as bold and bright.
However, in the 1960’s, with new age marketing channels and focus on creating tailored branding content, pink being closer to red and associated with romance was positioned for women and blue was positioned for masculinity, hence targeted men.
Today, from the very minute you conceive, these colors become your preferred choice – right from baby gender reveal parties to swaddling your newborn in color specific clothing.
Tickle Tickle Organic Essentials, was curated to break this gender-color association and to bring back the love for neutrals.
We focus on baby and toddler basics, curated in soft gender-neutral hues such as Green, Brown, White and Mustard.
These are timeless, evergreen colors that never go out of fashion and can be passed on to the next generation.
Why do we use only Herbal and Natural Colors:
Our skin is the second largest organ in our body; it acts as a waterproof, insulating shield, guarding the body against damaging sunlight and harmful chemicals.
Our skin is also porous; it absorbs whatever you throw on it. Yet what we wear doesn’t get its due importance as what we consume!
Many of the clothes we wear, or rather we make our children wear, get their hue from synthetic dyes, which are often made using petroleum or coal.
As such, when it comes to why natural dyes are better, the clue is really in the title—they are natural ! That means no synthetic, harmful chemicals are going on our bodies or into the wash.
Our herbal clothing line is infused with various herbs such as Turmeric, Harda (Black Myrobalan), Neem, Tamarind and sea salt that is great for our little ones skin which is so very sensitive at that age.
We also use Natural Coloured Cotton for our basics and baby accessories.
Not widely known, is the fact the color of cotton that we see today was not always off-white.
Cotton was found to have grown in shades of tan, red, brown, green and white. The colours come from pigments found in cotton; these pigments can produce shades ranging from tan to green and brown.
Clothing made with these fabrics are softer to touch, don’t fade as normal clothing do and last much longer than regular white cotton, due to the absence of dyes and colours.
Where do you start with while switching to organic clothing;
Become an active citizen through your wardrobe—Livia Firth
It can get overwhelming when we think about the whole sustainable process, the amount of clothes we have and how we work our way to changing our shopping habits for our family.
Making an effort one item at a time, is a good step towards conscious consumerism.
For us as a family, it started with a simple onesie for my little girl!
Pick an item (your favorite one) which you wear almost once every week. That is your basics and this is where you start!
Soon that one item will wear out and when it’s time to replace it, consciously choose sustainable organic cotton.
Don’t jump on sales, cheap is not always better! It just adds to the pile of synthetic waste.
Focus on adding basic colors and prints one at a time which can be worn with many other outfits.
For kids, buy brands that are generously sized so you can get more use out of their organic clothing.
