Hemp
Updated Aug 19, 2026 1 min read
Edited by Urša Satler
Hemp clothing is woven from fiber pulled from the stem of the Cannabis sativa plant, the industrial cultivar grown for fiber and seed, not the variety grown for the drug. Industrial hemp contains negligible THC and is regulated as an agricultural crop across most of Europe and a growing list of countries elsewhere.
Where it comes from
Hemp is grown in France, the Netherlands, China, and increasingly Italy and the UK. The plant is fast-growing (a single season), needs little irrigation in temperate climates, and naturally suppresses weeds, which means it is often grown without pesticides even when not formally certified.
How it wears
Hemp cloth feels closer to a heavyweight linen than to cotton: a similar drape, similar coolness in heat, and similar tendency to wrinkle. The fiber is one of the strongest natural fibers, so hemp garments hold their shape and resist abrasion well. They soften considerably with each wash; a stiff first-wear hemp shirt becomes much more pliable after three or four cycles.
How to care for it
Cool machine wash, line dry. Hemp tolerates regular washing without thinning, and it does not pill. It will fade with sun exposure over several years, which most wearers consider part of the fiber's character.
Live picks: prices and availability updated Sep 24, 2026
About the editor
Urša Satler is the founder of Purefect Choice, an online non-toxic goods shop in Slovenia. She stocks what she and her family actually need and use themselves, chosen on material composition and certification.
She started MaterialFilter for a plainly selfish reason: she was tired of checking labels in shops one garment at a time, and tired of hunting for fibre content buried five clicks deep on a product page, usually to discover that a beautiful dress was mostly polyester. MaterialFilter does that checking once, up front, so the composition is the first thing you see instead of the last thing you find.
She sets the standard this site scores against and owns its editorial direction. What she brings to it is the habit of reading a composition label before anything else (daily, for her own family and the shop she runs) and one rule that keeps that habit honest: every claim on MaterialFilter is meant to be checkable against a certification body's own public register, so you never have to take her word for it.