Items that have been tested successfully can be endorsed by retailers with the product label "Confidence in Textiles", which provides a valuable guide for purchasers of textiles. However, the prerequisite is that all components of the product, including accessories such as buttons, zips, linings etc. all, without exception, comply with the requirements of the list of criteria which applies consistently worldwide.
The test criteria include legally banned or regulated substances, chemicals that are known to be harmful to health and parameters enabling consumers to take precautions regarding their health. Taken as a whole, therefore, they go far beyond existing legal requirements. The level of testing depends on the intended use of the textile product in question: the closer the skin contact, the stricter the limits that are prescribed. Baby items and textile toys are therefore tested particularly rigorously.
Because Oeko-Tex certificated starting materials can be used at subsequent processing stages along the textile chain, random samples may be tested at any time to ensure that the required criteria are being met. In addition, each year the test institutes of the International Oeko-Tex Association carry out product inspections among retailers and take random samples during production, when the human ecology standards that have been promised by manufacturers are checked.
The inspection service which is also offered by the Hohenstein Institutes, for example in China, India, Bangladesh and Turkey, is not confined to assessing finished products but also, by taking random samples locally, allows the various stages of production and the flow of goods to be inspected.
This extends from examining the raw materials and accessories that are used, through to monitoring production and inspecting the outgoing goods and ensuring that they are carefully loaded into the containers. Thanks to this comprehensive production monitoring and quality control system, any deficiencies are detected early, so that subsequent costs to the purchasing company arising from complaints are effectively avoided.
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