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The Wild History of Hemp You Never Knew About
The USS Constitution, AKA Old Ironsides, is one of the most famous ships in history. Aboard that ship was 120,000 pounds of non-psychoactive cannabis rope. When Betsy Ross first sewed the American flag, she held in her hands non-psychoactive cannabis canvas. The word “canvas” comes from the word “cannabis,” AKA hemp.
Porsche, one of the best car makers in the world, made a car out of hemp. The CEO of Hemp Earth flies around in a plane made of hemp. Hemp has been called “The Miracle Fiber” – the plant that will save the world.
But it won’t. The Porsche was only partially made out of hemp and couldn’t be in the rain, and the CEO of Hemp Earth hasn’t finished building the hemp plane in over eight years and can’t raise the funds to finish it. And now he’s talking about building a hemp spaceship.
So why is Patagonia investing so heavily in hemp? Why is everyone screaming about hemp t-shirts? After doing some reading online, it turns out the topic of hemp is a very sticky, icky topic, and I just want to let you know that I’m trying to separate hemp from that other plant that is also hemp. I’m trying to look at hemp from an incredibly nerdy lens. Is it actually important to the world? Does it matter at all? And then that should be fine.
Fun fact: besides the shoes that I’m wearing, which are from the company that makes the very famous anti-poaching boots, Jim Green, and my Bradley Mountain backpack, I am covered in 100% hemp – all Patagonia hemp.
The Problem With How We Talk About Hemp
The first thing you need to know before we can actually even get into the discussion is that hemp is never put up against anything correctly. Everything is miscategorized with hemp.
Hemp fiber and clothes should not be compared to cotton. Hemp-crete should not be compared to concrete – everything is messed up because that’s not essentially what hemp is. So, let’s talk about cotton, and then I’ll tell you why everything is messed up.
Why Cotton Became King
There are many fascinating reasons why cotton is the most popular textile on Earth – everything is made out of cotton. The big thing is that cotton is the perfect blend of everything: it’s strong enough, it’s soft enough, it can be made into really tough workwear like duck canvas or jeans or twills and stuff like that, or it can be made into something very very delicate like cotton gauze. So it can basically do everything.
There’s also a ton of other reasons why cotton got so popular. It was the first fiber and then fabric to get industrialized. It was a huge export for the U.S. and Britain.
There was nothing holding cotton back, and there wasn’t anything holding hemp back for a very long time. It was required in the U.S. that every farmer grow some hemp in certain areas, and then people were obviously like, “Maybe this plant does something else.”
Understanding Hemp vs Cotton
But that’s not the whole story because hemp, I don’t really think, would have ever been in every single shirt that people are wearing and every single sock and every single pant. Cotton is made from seed hairs – that explains it.
When hemp is a bast fiber, hemp is actually not really that closely related to cotton, but it’s related to things like jute, linen, nettle, sisal – all of those things that don’t sound that appetizing.
To put it in a different way, hemp is more related to a burlap sack than cotton is related to hemp. Being a bast fiber, it has some incredible benefits, but it also has some major drawbacks. But you may be thinking, “Well, people wear linen a lot. Why don’t they wear hemp a lot?” It’s because of those incredible things that also give it a drawback.
The Science Behind Hemp’s Strength
So, if you’re like me and you read all these things that say hemp is one of the strongest natural fibers in the world, you would probably think, “Well, what the heck is the strongest natural fiber in the world? I want that one!” You can’t have that one, neither can I, because it’s spider silk. So, no one really officially says that hemp is the second strongest, but I think that’s what it is.
Hemp is also very closely related to jute, which you may be familiar with if your Birkenstocks ever came apart – there is a jute layer underneath the sole. And jute is a very, very strong material, not as strong as hemp, but it’s not something that you look at and think, “I want to wear that.” And that’s because jute is very rough and coarse.
But what makes hemp and jute so strong is that since they are bast fibers, they come from the stock of the plant as opposed to the seed, and the seed only has little wispy hairs on top that don’t ever get too long.
So they can’t be as strong because, as we know, the longer the fiber, the stronger it is. And with that, a lot of the time comes an added thickness, which is where you lose some comfort.
The Comfort Factor: Breaking Down the Science
Just some guidelines to set: typically, clothing fabrics and fibers start to get irritating when they are over 20 microns thick. Some people say 24 microns, and some people say 30 microns. But 20 is kind of that area where, all of a sudden, your wool sweater is a little itchy, and it’s poking into you.
Cotton typically ranges from 9 to 22 microns, linen is typically 10 to 25 microns, wool goes from 10 to 35 microns, and then you have hemp. Wool is considered the classic itchy material at 10 to 35 microns. Hemp is 10 to 50 microns, so it trends higher on average.
Is it just super unbearable to wear? No. Is it really even super uncomfortable? No. Do you get used to it like two seconds after you put it on? Yes. But the first time you put it on, you may be thinking, “This is not as comfortable as that other shirt I wore somewhere else, so I’ll get that other shirt.”
The Real Secret: Why Patagonia Loves Hemp
So then, why is Patagonia investing so heavily in making hemp t-shirts and other hemp clothing? The secret is in this Idaho potato. I am not wearing 100% hemp today. Actually, my jeans are an incredibly weird blend. I don’t even know why Patagonia used this blend, but we shall break this down into three pieces:
Number one: okay, hemp is not comfortable, but it’s amazing for all of these other reasons – why isn’t it used more?
Number two: why is Patagonia investing so heavily in it? Don’t forget, organic cotton wasn’t a thing until Patagonia made it a thing, invested a ton of money in it, made the infrastructure for it, and then it blew up. So, is hemp the same thing?
Number three: there is a solution that can change the world in a big way, but it’s not the solution that most people propose, at least I think.
The Hemp Divide: Why It’s Not Taking Over (Yet)
Number one: why is hemp not taking over the world? The answer is because it’s hemp. It’s an incredibly divisive plant – people either love it or they hate it. So what happens is people that love it say it’s the next miracle thing, it destroys cotton, it’s better than all this, it can power our cars, we can make planes out of it.
And then the other side says, “No, you just want hemp for a different reason.” So then it kind of goes kaput, and since it’s so divisive, you basically can’t get in the middle. Hemp has to destroy everything for some people to be right, and it has to be useless for other people to be right. So, both angles push it towards the extreme when, in reality, hemp is kind of right in the middle.
Cotton is cheaper and softer, and people like to wear it more. Then you have jute that handles kind of the industrial rope end of things, just not quite as strong. Hemp plastic is not as structurally sound as regular plastic, hemp-crete is not as strong as concrete – there’s a whole mess. When in reality, hemp is great and amazing and the best of the best for some things, but not everything.
The Future of Hemp: It’s All About Blends
So why is Patagonia using hemp at all? What is it good for? Blends, baby, blends! Hemp is good for everything, but not if you take everything else away. But if you add in hemp and you mix it into the pot, everything changes. If you have hemp in a shirt, the shirt is more durable and abrasion-resistant.
If you add hemp to plastic so that it’s 25% hemp plastic, you reduce plastic usage by 25%. Then, if you look at base layers, for example, merino was great because it keeps your temperature regulated really well, but you need to add nylon or polyester so it doesn’t rip and get destroyed – it stays better for a longer amount of time. You can replace those synthetic fibers with hemp.
You can also add hemp to socks, so your socks will last way, way longer. By using hemp in different ways, we can reduce a lot of things, all while growing things in a more sustainable way and all of that, and then hemp becomes very, very powerful.
Patagonia’s Long Game
Sorry, I forgot the most important part of this article: Patagonia is in the stage where they’re just trying to build infrastructure and get farmers growing hemp in the U.S., getting machines to process this hemp.
Also, when we first started processing cotton way, way, way back when, it wasn’t the same cotton that we know now – we didn’t have different staple lengths and genetically engineered cotton plants that were super long and soft and thin.
So over time, what we should see is a refinement in hemp where it does get softer possibly, it does get cheaper, it’s way easier to process, and it’s used in a lot more things.
So boom – it’s already way better. Patagonia is the beast that is going to make all the processing and growing and XYZ way, way easier, and it could theoretically become the fabric of the future. There are a lot of factors that go into play, but that is why Patagonia is investing so heavily in it. Obviously, they think there’s going to be a big return somehow, in some way. So that’s why.
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The Potato Philosophy: A Final Thought
In closing, hemp t-shirts are a lot like food, specifically the potato. Many people think a potato is the healthiest food in the world, and it just may be, but this weird thing happens if you eat only potatoes and nothing else, you die. So you need to eat other things that are also very good for you.
I’m aware that a potato was the worst example that I could have picked because you can survive exclusively on potatoes if you also drink milk. Anywho, it’s time to cook this bad boy up for dinner. Goodbye!
This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.
The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.