FTC Business Alert How to Avoid Bamboozling Your Customers – Bamboo is not an accepted Fiber name in USA. Unless you can prove without doubt that the fiber used is bamboo. AATCC and ASTM have no method to identify Bamboo.

This Post is based on FTC publication on using the term Bamboo as a fiber name

Marketers looking to provide more environmentally friendly choices to consumers may have heard about Bamboo, which has been recognized for its ability to grow quickly with little or no need for pesticides. But when it comes to textile products made from bamboo, that’s not the whole story.

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The truth is, most “Bamboo” textile products, if not all, really are Rayon. Rayon is  typically  made using environmentally toxic chemicals in a process that emits hazardous pollutants into the air.

While different plants, including bamboo, can be used as a source material to create rayon, there’s no trace of the original plant in the finished rayon product. So in Rayon that is claimed to be made of Bamboo it is not possible to identify if the raw material used was bamboo or not

If you make, advertise or sell bamboo-based textiles, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber — often called “mechanically processed bamboo” — it can’t be called bamboo.

Indeed, to advertise or label a product as “bamboo,” you need competent and reliable evidence, such as scientific tests and analyses, to show that it’s made of actual bamboo fiber. Relying on other people’s claims isn’t substantiation. The same standard applies to other claims, like a claim that rayon fibers retain natural antimicrobial properties from the bamboo plant.

If you sell clothing, linens, or other textile products, you’re responsible for making truthful disclosures about the fiber content. If your product isn’t made directly of bamboo fiber — but is a manufactured fiber for which bamboo was the plant source — it should be labeled and advertised using the proper generic name for the fiber, such as rayon, or “rayon made from bamboo provided you have enough material evidence to prove that the rayon was originally made of Bamboo as raw material.

Claiming Bamboo Rayon as ECO friendly , or Green Fiber is also wrong and misleading.

Any claims you make about your textile products have to be true and cannot be misleading. As the seller, you must have substantiation for each and every claim — express and implied — that you make.

Similar Bans on use of Bamboo as a fiber name exists in Canada, and EU.

Be careful , if you are in doubt call us at the ASTM Technical and Service consultant office in India for help  textile1@astm.org we can direct you to the right resources. We can only provide assistance for authentic information see below.
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For More Information you must contact FTC –Federal Trade commission

For more information on advertising and labeling rayon and other textile products, see Threading Your Way Through the Labeling Requirements Under the Textile and Wool Acts. For guidance on making environmental marketing claims, see Complying with the Environmental Marketing Guides. These and other guides for business are at ftc.gov/bcp/business.shtm.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit ftc.gov 

The FTC enters consumer complaints into the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure online database and investigative tool used by hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.