The Asanas® | Sustainable Yogawear & Brand Review

The Asanas® is a Norwegian Yoga and lifestyle brand creating high-quality and high-performance yoga clothes and equipment. Some of its main selling points are its Norwegian design (Scandinavian Minimalism) and wellness focus. It produces items to calm your senses and help you create a timeless yoga- and mindfulness practice. Today, The Asanas® features five main collections including yoga equipment, yoga wear, mindfulness cushions, and other accessories. It's primarily accessible through its Norwegian site, but it also has an international site for meditation cushions. 

Picture from their Pinterest.

My story with The Asanas®

I've been a user of The Asanas® cork collection since late 2018 when I decided to purchase my first yoga mat. When I landed on this yoga mat, I had just recently gotten into sustainability and I was looking at yoga mats that weren't primarily plastic-based and that had something local to them. After weeks of indecisiveness, and saving up money for another 3 months, I purchased their cork collection bundle. Today, it's five years later, and all of it is still in great quality. The mat has seen countless hours of use, and it remains my only yoga mat. A bit of wear in color is to be expected. Yet, the mat never feels dirty or greasy, and quality-wise it's holding up like day one. To say it directly, I've not been disappointed by their yoga equipment for a moment.

What initially drew me to The Asanas® was their choice of materials. The mat is made with the bark from oak trees and the rubber is from the rubber tree. Ideally, they are both recyclable and biodegradable. Oak trees are the only trees that regenerate their bark, making the harvest possible to be a sustainable and responsible process that can increase a tree's carbon storage. Their blocks are also 100% cork, while their yoga wheel consists of cork, rubber, and an ABS plastic core. The yoga strap is in cotton.

While my knowledge on the topic has expanded since 2018, and I definitively wish to see The Asanas® certify their materials, and use more organic cotton, I'm willing to overlook that for this brand being locally accessible, high quality, and long-lasting. 

My second purchase from The Asanas® was their 2020- Revive collection. It was my second time purchasing yoga clothes, and this time I wanted to make a better choice. The Revive collection fit its audience timely, using recycled fishnets procured by Healthy Seas at a time when the impact of plastic pollution was reaching a height in the public sphere. The material in the yoga wear is a blend of ECONYL® and Elastan. Econyl® is a type of regenerated nylon, making it soft, sturdy, stretchy, and able to keep its shape. Recycled plastic usually needs a small number of virgin fibers to keep its quality. From the product itself, you can expect a bit of pilling at spots that experience a lot of friction, and it will absorb dust like a pro if you let it. 

Read more about the different qualities of synthetics.

Another aspect of this collection that I liked, was their use of water dyes. I chose to get it in the color "Villbærrød [Wildberry Red]," and a backside of this is that it bleeds color for quite a few washes. Due to this, and likely some other factors, like it being made of plastics, the garments are recommended to be carefully hand-washed and dried in the shade. It is not suitable for ironing or the tumble dryer. Personally, I have not had any reason to iron it as it does not really wrinkle. The set I bought is described as "Designed in Norway" and "Made in Indonesia."

There's a lack of transparency regarding working conditions, and out of all the aspects, I think giving real insight into is some of what will help the brand the most towards really being sustainable. So far, I've taken a good note of their conscious choice of materials and dyes, and now I really want to see the social aspect of it, so #WhoMadeMyClothes?

The Revive collection, like all their collections, contains a small selection of primarily unicolored and basic items that can be mixed and matched to your preferences. I love basics due to their versatility, so that is a plus for me. I also find myself adoring several of their colors even though I own this one set in red.

Since 2020, The Asanas® has added a few more collections to their site. Noteworthy, are their meditation cushions, Cloud, and recycled wool yoga mats, Yin. These are both offered in neutral and calming shades, at most being beige\white, light gray, dusty pink, and midnight blue. Their Cloud bundle consists of a large meditation cushion, a small meditation cushion, and an eye pillow. The large is made in and filled with 100% organic cotton. The small pillow is made of organic cotton and filled with buckwheat shells, making it slightly harder than the large one. The eye pillow is made of organic cotton and filled with jasmine rice. All pillows have removable covers that let you easily wash them if needed. In 2021, I was gifted the Cloud bundle in light gray by my mom, which I am frequently grateful for.

Their wool yoga mats, YIN, are the newest addition to the site, arriving in fall 2021. It is made in recycled wool from Italian wool sweaters in Italy with an antislip side of natural rubber. The claim is that this is both ethically and sustainably produced. However, this has no certification, so I am staying skeptical of it. There are several documentaries showing that unethical production is happening in European countries usually known for good practices as well as for high-fashion brands. I do, however, love that they chose recycled wool to limit their impact on animals.

A note on the inconsistency of information

From experience, I love the products The Asanas® is offering the audience. However, by writing this post and cross-referencing it with my own items and site descriptions, I have things I wish were better. First of all, and I believe this is the main one, the item descriptions can be somewhat confusing. The Wildberry tights have a description of "Nylon and Spandex" while the page describes it as "Econyl® and Elastan." My second issue, is that the Cloud collection highlights that it is made of "100% Organic," but 100% organic what? It's not until I find the "details" below the main description and the pictures that I am informed that it is cotton. Generally, the description is good at explaining the expectation from it, but basic information like this could be presented more visible. As well, do some items lack a proper item description, and what is to find about an item and where vary. This makes it harder than it needs to be to navigate the site.

I also wish to see the washing instructions as information beneath each item. It is printed into the item, like my tights, but knowing that it needs handwashing and only can hang to try is not something that makes an item appealing or available to other consumers, and something they may want to know before purchase.  I notice that it is done on some items, like the Revive tights in the color Mynte, while it is not in others, especially tops.

After having painfully slowly discovered their search button, and typed in "Revive" for the blog post about the Revive collection, I have finally found information! Now, my biggest question is: Why isn't this in the description of the item? Where is the "ØKO-TEX 100" certified Econyl® or the information that Econyl® is publicly traceable? I wish to see these, but not really as a fancy quote from Vogue, but as a brand statement so I know they trust their own decisions and know what's going on in their supply chains. 

Who are "The Asanas® Team?"

The last thing I want to touch on, and this is especially important for me for small brands, is that I have no idea who the owners of the brand are. I want to feel a connection when shopping small, and instead, I feel clouded. Reading the "About us" page, I feel left out. The description starts with "Our," but who are you, and who are "We?" There are pictures attached, but nothing is telling me of these are the people behind the brand or models, names or short descriptions about who the owners are as people. I know nothing about "you" besides that you own this business that I like. 

Summary

Here's the short summary I've been able to put together for this blog post, summarizing what I like and what I believe could be better.

The Good

✓ High-quality products made for longevity

✓ Small, versatile collections

✓ No firsthand animal products (Yin)

✓ Reasonably priced

✓ Uses recycled synthetic (Revive) and recycled wool (Yin)

✓ Uses organic cotton in Cloud

✓ Uses cork and natural rubber in Cork

The Bad

✗ Lack of information regarding the ethical treatment of workers in the supply chain

✗ Lack of certifications, or lack of showing the consumer the certifications they do hold through conscious choice of the fiber content

✗ Inconsistent display of information for products 

✗ Hard to find needed information regarding collections

✗ Unreliable sources: Vogue is being sourced for the claim "Econyl® is publicly traceable"

✗ Difficult to find blog pages that can offer additional information on a collection

✗ No information on dyes - Don't ask me where I got water dyes (Revive) from because I can't recover that piece of information anymore.

✗ Who are The Asanas® Team? I don't know, but I wish I knew.

Tell me: Have you tried this brand? What is your experience?