What is OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 and is it important when buying a silk pillowcase?

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by Zoe Doyle
March 14, 2025
6 min read

OEKO-TEX® is a global certification system you can trust. A textile product with the OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 label has been independently tested for harmful substances according to strict scientific criteria (far beyond legal regulations). All Mulberry Park Silks products are certified OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. This article explains what this means and why it matters when purchasing silk sheets, pillowcases, and accessories.

Key Takeaways

OEKO-TEX® Certified for Safety – Mulberry Park Silks products are OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified, ensuring they are free from harmful chemicals and safe for daily use.
Silk’s Unique Benefits – Silk is gentle on hair and skin, reducing friction, preventing tangles, retaining moisture, and minimizing wrinkles. It is also hypoallergenic, breathable, and temperature-regulating for year-round comfort.
Strict Testing & Quality Assurance – Every component of Mulberry Park Silks products, from raw silk to finished bedding, undergo rigorous independent testing to meet OEKO-TEX® standards.
OEKO-TEX® vs. GOTS – While GOTS applies to organic plant-based fabrics, silk cannot be GOTS-certified. However, OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 ensures silk is free from harmful substances, making it a trusted safety standard.
Why Certification Matters – Low-quality silk may contain pesticides, bleach, and toxic dyes. Choosing OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified silk guarantees a safer, cleaner, and more luxurious sleeping experience.

Silk: A Fabric With Unique Properties and Benefits

As a leading manufacturer of silk sheets, pillowcases, and accessories, Mulberry Park Silks is dedicated to educating our clients on the many benefits of silk. Luxuriously soft and naturally nourishing, silk promotes healthier hair, radiant skin, and overall wellness. It is temperature-regulating, hypoallergenic, and non-irritating-making it ideal for even the most sensitive skin. Additionally, silk is naturally resistant to mold and mites, ensuring a cleaner and more comfortable sleep environment.

OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100

Mulberry Park Silks: Going a Step Further for Safety

At Mulberry Park Silks, we go a step further to ensure our fabric's safety. Along with ensuring that our silk sheets and accessories meet the highest standards of beauty, comfort, and color fastness, all of our silk products are certified OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. This means that all of our products and their components have been tested against a list of over 1,000 harmful substances according to OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. We have taken this extra step to reassure customers that manufacturing non-toxic silk sheets is of the utmost importance to us. Every piece of silk you bring into your home from Mulberry Park Silks is safe and natural (gentle enough even for your baby). We want to give you the peace of mind that your silk bedding has undergone rigorous testing.

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OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 was developed by European textile institutes to help reduce the environmental footprint of the textile industry. This global testing and accreditation program establishes strict standards for screening chemicals and harmful substances in fabrics and other consumer textiles. To earn certification, every component of a textile product-including threads, buttons, and accessories-must meet rigorous testing criteria. Brands seeking certification must submit materials for evaluation at every stage, from raw fabric to the finished product.

Additionally, the OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 follows a tiered testing approach: the more intimate a fabric's contact with the skin, the more stringent and comprehensive the testing. Testing limits for harmful substances are reviewed annually and adjusted as needed to ensure continued compliance with evolving safety standards. OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certification means that independent labs have analyzed the product against test criteria for a variety of harmful substances including formaldehyde, heavy metals, pesticides, phthalates, chlorinated phenols, colorants, solvents, and other chemicals; these are often used in producing fabric, including silk, organic cotton, and even natural fibers. Products are categorized and tested according to their intended use:

Items for babies such as crib and bassinet sheets, swaddles and baby apparel
Products that have direct contact with the skin such as pillowcases, sheets, bedding sets, and clothing
Products without direct contact with the skin such as stuffing, fabric lining, and decorative embellishments
Home textiles such as wall coverings, curtains, upholstery fabric

To receive certification, all components and materials of textile products must comply with the test criteria, many of which are significantly more stringent than government regulations require. Once these steps are completed, the designation, "OEKO-TEX® CONFIDENCE IN TEXTILES -- STANDARD 100 -- Tested for harmful substances" is officially issued.

How Mulberry Park Silks Products Earn their STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX® Certification

The process for Mulberry Park Silks' pure silk fabric to be OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified is quite stringent and must be renewed on an annual basis. OEKO-TEX® is an internationally recognized standard for textile processing. Certification begins with our production facility submitting an application to the OEKO-TEX® Institute for testing of textile products. Once accepted, a sufficient quantity of pure silk raw materials, as well as finished silk product samples such as silk sheets, must be provided to the lab. The lab then determines the testing specifics based on the intended use of the product; as noted above. A textile used for bedding, or by infants and children, would be tested differently than a table linen or decorative wall hanging.

Next, an independent OEKO-TEX® laboratory tests the silk according to strict protocols, documenting the process with details such as the test date, sample designation (including manufacturing batch, finishing batch, and color), the individual responsible for testing, and the results. To ensure ongoing quality, fabrics undergo random testing periodically. While this certification process is entirely voluntary, our commitment is twofold: to offer products with integrity that we trust for our own children and to minimize our carbon footprint-keeping sustainability at the forefront of everything we do.

Although silk fiber is naturally hypoallergenic and generally non-irritating to even sensitive skin, it is important to be certain that the silk products you bring into your home are free from contaminants. Low-quality silk may contain pesticides, fertilizer, bleach, groundwater waste, and other harmful toxins and chemicals. , At Mulberry Park Silks, the silk fabric used in our bedding and accessory collections conforms to the highest standards in the textile industry. We proudly display our OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certification on our packaging, website, and labels.

Understanding the Differences Between OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 and GOTS

Mulberry Park Silks Products are all certified by OEKO-TEX

There are many different certification designations available to textile manufacturers. Along with OEKO-TEX®, one of the most common is GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard). Unlike STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®, which ensures textiles are free from harmful chemicals, GOTS specifically applies to organic textiles.

A GOTS certification means that the fabric contains at least 70% organic natural fibers, is not treated with bleach, formaldehyde, or other toxic substances, is colored with non-toxic dyes, and is produced according to strict social and environmental standards. This certification is typically used for organic plant-based materials, such as cotton, hemp, and linen.

Because GOTS applies only to fibers derived from organic agriculture, silk does not qualify for this designation. Although silk is a natural fiber, it is animal-derived rather than plant-based (Mulberry silk is produced by the silkworm that feeds primarily on a diet of mulberry leaves) and there is no recognized organic standard for silk production under GOTS guidelines. However, silk can still be certified OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100, ensuring that it is free from harmful substances.

Both GOTS and OEKO-TEX® offer consumers confidence that the textiles they purchase are tested for safety. OEKO-TEX® certifies a wide range of materials, including both organic and non-organic textiles. In addition to silk, other OEKO-TEX®-certified fabrics include cotton, bamboo, Tencel, wool, and even leather.

The Health and Wellness Benefits of Mulberry Park Silks

Woman Modeling with A 19 Momme Silk Pillowcase in White

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Along with being OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified, Mulberry Parks Silk products deliver significant benefits to hair, skin, and overall wellness. Knowing that all of our silk sheets, pillowcases , and accessories are entirely safe to use will give you peace of mind as you indulge in all the beauty benefits silk pillowcases and silk sheets have to offer.

Let's begin with hair. Whatever your hair type, if you wake with a head full of tangles, you can likely blame it on friction from your cotton pillowcase. Swapping your cotton pillowcase for a mulberry silk pillowcase will allow your hair to gently glide across the surface rather than snagging, no matter how much you toss and turn. You'll wake with hair that's smoother, silkier, and definitely tangle-free. Along with tearing at your tresses, cotton also robs hair of essential moisture especially if your hair is coarse, curly or wiry.

Silk pillowcases are gentle on the skin. As we noted above, a cotton pillowcase is by nature very drying and can undo the good work of even the priciest moisturizer. In contrast, silk is protein-based and can help your skin retain its natural moisture. Silk also reduces friction on delicate facial skin, which can minimize the occurrence of sleep creases and wrinkles. At the same time, silk is hypoallergenic and non-irritating, which means it's gentle on even the most sensitive and even acne-prone skin.

Unlike synthetic materials, a silk bedding set is naturally breathable and helps regulate body temperature. One of the main reasons people love sleeping on silk is its luxurious feel-and for good reason. Silk's inherent temperature-regulating properties keep you comfortable year-round, ensuring a restful and rejuvenating night's sleep.

Mulberry Park: Accessible and Affordable Luxury Silk

We founded Mulberry Park with one simple mission: to design the highest quality silk items in the market and offer them at an affordable price. And we've done just that, with a full range of silk products made from 100% pure mulberry long strand silk fabric. The silk fabric used for our silk sheets and silk pillowcases has also been OEKO-TEX® Certified (Standard 100) to be free of chemicals.

Visit us online or call us at (800) 860-1924 to learn more about our silk sheets, silk pillowcases, duvet covers and shams, and real silk accessories including sleep masks, travel pillows, and silk hair scrunchies.