OEKO-TEX® certified Kurma Yoga mats
OEKO-TEX certified Kurma yoga mats are made according to the highest health safety standard currently available. This is more important than you might think.
Health and environmentalism are intrinsic to the philosophy of yoga. Therefore, there has always been a certain degree of genuine eco-awareness in the yoga industry. What is relatively new though, is the industry’s lavish use of health-related or environmental promises. You can hardly find a yoga mat these days that doesn’t assert “eco-friendly”.
Since there is no sheriff in town to set standards or regulations, the phrase “eco-friendliness” becomes subject to interpretation. When these claims aren’t backed by scientific data, then how can you be sure that a yoga mat is safe?
Since 2012 the International Association for Research and Testing in the Field of Textile Ecology has been Kurma’s sheriff. Our German-made PVC mats have been certified according to the association’s Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX®, Product class I. The same standard applies to articles for babies and toddlers and has the strictest requirements and limit values. In 2020 we launched our GECO Series rubber mats with Product class I certification.
Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX®, Product class I
The Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX® list of criteria contains around 100 annually updated test parameters for harmful substances, including AZO, DOP, phthalates, Bisphenol-A (BPA), lead and dioxins (see full list here).
OEKO-TEX certified Kurma yoga mats are made according to the highest health safety standard possible. That is and always will be the Kurma guarantee.
The Kurma guarantee
We are well aware that products with strict certifications come with a certain price tag not everybody is comfortable with. At the same time, we are convinced that this is the only way to guarantee the absolute safety of our mats both during usage and at the end of their life cycle. During our search for a yoga mat recycling partner, we found only a handful of specialized companies that can fully reuse mats into new products. None of these companies, however, will recycle every yoga mat they get ahold of. To protect their workers, sound evidence as to the material safety must be provided – and the OEKO-TEX® certification does just that.
