Understanding OEKO-TEX®

What OEKO-TEX® is

OEKO-TEX® is an international association of independent textile and leather research and testing institutes. It writes and administers a set of standards, each with its own scope, and the testing behind them is carried out by member institutes rather than by the brand or the factory being assessed. That independence is the whole point of the system.

People in sourcing conversations often say a fabric is OEKO-TEX® as if that were a single, self-explanatory fact. It is not. The useful question is always which standard, issued to whom, for which articles, and valid until when. Once those four things are known, the claim becomes checkable.

The standards under the OEKO-TEX® association

• OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100: the best known of the set, a product certification for textiles tested for harmful substances, applied from yarn through to finished article including components such as threads, buttons and trims
• OEKO-TEX® ORGANIC COTTON: verification of organic cotton articles from farm to finished product, covering testing for genetically modified organisms alongside harmful substances
• OEKO-TEX® LEATHER STANDARD: the equivalent product certification written for leather articles and the stages of leather production
• OEKO-TEX® STeP: a certification for production facilities, assessing how a site actually operates rather than what it produces
• OEKO-TEX® MADE IN GREEN: a traceable product label that combines harmful-substance testing with a requirement for certified manufacturing facilities
• OEKO-TEX® ECO PASSPORT: certification for the chemicals, colourants and auxiliaries used in textile and leather production, assessed at the input stage
• OEKO-TEX® RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS: a management tool aimed at supply chain due diligence obligations in the textile and leather industry

How STANDARD 100 actually works

STANDARD 100 is a harmful-substance test. An article is submitted with its components, tested by a member institute against the criteria the standard sets, and if it meets them a certificate is issued covering that article for a defined period. The criteria list runs to a large number of regulated and monitored substances, and it takes account of wider chemical regulation such as REACH and the substances of very high concern list maintained by the European Chemicals Agency.

The specific limit values are defined by the standard itself and are revised periodically. New editions are published on a regular cycle, which is exactly why a certificate has an expiry date rather than being permanent. Anyone who needs a current figure should take it from the published standard on the official site rather than from a supplier summary or an article like this one.

Certification also involves an audit of the production site by the certifying institute, so the process is not purely a laboratory exercise on a submitted sample.

Product classes I to IV

STANDARD 100 sorts articles into four product classes according to how much skin contact they have in use. The more intimate the contact, the stricter the requirements applied.

Product class I covers articles for babies and small children, and carries the most demanding requirements of the four. Product class II covers articles worn with direct skin contact, such as shirts and underwear. Product class III covers articles without direct skin contact, such as an outer jacket. Product class IV covers furnishing and decoration materials, such as curtains and upholstery fabric.

This matters commercially because a certificate issued in one class does not automatically satisfy a buyer working in a stricter one. A kidswear buyer will look for the class appropriate to kidswear. If you are developing a childrenswear line off a supplier's existing certification, check the class on the actual certificate rather than assuming.

What OEKO-TEX® covers, and what it does not

STANDARD 100 tells you that the certified article was tested against the standard's harmful-substance criteria. It does not tell you anything about labour conditions at the factory, about wages or working hours, about the environmental performance of the dye house, or about whether the fabric will hold its colour after a season of washing. Those are different questions answered by different instruments: social audits, facility certifications and performance testing respectively.

This is the single most common misunderstanding in sourcing conversations. A harmful-substance product certificate is a chemical safety instrument. Facility performance is what STeP is for, and social and environmental conditions in manufacture are what MADE IN GREEN adds on top of a product certification by requiring the sites involved to be STeP certified. Reading across from one to another gives a brand a claim it cannot support.

Nor is a certificate a durability or quality warranty. A garment can be fully compliant with a harmful-substance standard and still shrink, twist or lose print adhesion, because none of that is what the standard measures.

Validity, scope and verification

OEKO-TEX® product certificates are issued for a defined period and have to be renewed, at which point the article is reassessed against the criteria in force at that time. Facility certification under STeP runs on a longer cycle. In every case the certificate names the holder, the articles or the site it covers, and the dates it applies to.

Certificates can be checked independently. The association operates a public verification tool where a certificate or label number can be looked up, and MADE IN GREEN labelled products carry a product identifier or QR code that resolves to the production stages behind that item. Use those tools. A screenshot of a logo in a supplier deck is not evidence of anything.

What this means when you are sourcing

Certification status is specific to a supplier and to a product, and it is time-limited. Nothing in this article should be read as a statement about the certification status of any particular company, including Simsotex. If certification matters to your programme, ask the supplier directly for the current certificate covering the exact article or facility you are buying from, and verify the number yourself.

It is also worth being clear internally about why you want it. A retailer requirement, a market entry condition and a marketing wish are three different reasons, and they lead to different answers about which standard to pursue and who needs to hold it. Trims and decoration are their own question: a certified base fabric says nothing about the ink, the transfer film, the thread or the label sewn into it, because those are separate articles with separate assessments.

Questions worth putting to a supplier

• Which OEKO-TEX® standard is being referred to, in full
• Who holds the certificate, and does that entity actually make the item you are buying
• Which articles or facilities does the certificate list
• Which product class applies, and does it suit your end use
• What are the issue and expiry dates, and can the number be verified publicly
• Are the trims, threads, inks and transfers covered, or only the base fabric
• If a claim is going on your packaging or website, what exactly does the certificate allow you to say