I am a strong supporter of all things organic. The farming methods used in organics tend to be more sustainable. In regular farming, small pesticide residues can stay on the food product or in the cotton fibers. The exposure may be small, but when I can afford to do so, I buy organic to reduce my toxic exposure. (In a similar vein, I buy all-natural products for my home and body, so I am not really attempting to single out agriculture here as a culprit.)
With my organic frame of mind, I tried some organic cotton sports socks when all of my other socks finally wore out after over five years of solid wear. I tend to buy a dozen or so pairs of socks at a time and wear them until they fall apart. And then I continue to wear them for another few months before I get around to replacing them. By the time I finally replace them, I am always shocked at the prices and disappointed that I waited until a sock crisis to buy rather than to take my time looking for deals. My husband points out that I get a pretty good value out of those dozen pairs of socks.
I found some cotton organic socks for wholesale prices and decided to give them a whirl.
Now that you know how cheap I am and what kind of performance I expect from socks, you will have some frame of reference for why I will probably buy off the shelf next time. You see, there is a reason they put that polyester in socks. Not only does it help the sock keep their shape (and I can tell you that the socks I have look like a motley assortment of sock sizes at this point), polyester wears a whole lot better.
I am about six months out now from my big sock purchase and actually only wear the organic socks about half the time. When I am doing dirty work outside, I put on older sports socks. For business wear, I wear an organic dress sock (which is working well but gets very little wear).
Over the past six months, those half-time socks are starting to fall apart. The heels are developing holes large enough I will have to start throwing them away. Check out the picture at right -- the foot part of the sock is quite stretched, the calf areas are now different heights, and the sock on top has a small hole.
What I will probably do is go back to regular ole socks that will last ten times longer and spend my organic dollars on other products. Bath towels are working well for me, for instance. Before I do so, if you have a great organic sock to recommend, by all means do so. But remember, I am basically cheap. I would need some serious convincing to even try a $10 sock.
