Our Story - The Pieces
The Inspiration
Based out of Southern California, since September of '09, Brittanny and Daniel started making organic blankets because of Daniel's sleeping discomforts (night sweats) when using a polyester blanket his mother had given him as a gift. He had only realized that the blanket was the cause of such unrest after discovering that his mother too was suffering from night sweats from using the exact same blanket--apparently they had a major sale so being the price-conscious shopper that she is, she couldn't resist one for herself! =) Then further research on the internet had led them to discover that many millions of people around the world are dealing with the same discomfort (also known as hyper-hydrosis) with little idea of the cause. WOW! Of course, with life being a challenge as it is in our daily relationships with people, work, financials, passions and what not, not gaining an effective night's sleep will likely make it more challenging.
For that reason, they've made it a mission to continually educate themselves, through the health-conscious community, about the many distresses caused by synthetic (plastic-like) substances along with the many benefits of organic & natural living in hopes to keep their family and friends informed so that they can gain more control of their health and sustain a longer and happier life. And because organic living can be expensive at the moment due to a relatively less demand, they've made it their extended mission to make the products they've created for themselves affordable and accessible to all, even if they have to sell it at cost, and give whatever they can afford. <3
The Construction
"So why not buy instead of making one?" At first, their intentions were simply to find something organic and natural online and be done with it. However, after looking through a bunch of organic options, Brittanny for some reason didn't find any blankets suitable to her taste--probably because she's been fortunate to work as a fashion stylist this past few years--and wanted something specific. Additionally, the prices on the blankets that they were considering were on the higher side as well; as high up as $500 even. So then through numerous inspirations about the amazing versatility of hemp, she had looked up hemp textile suppliers and discovered a type of fleece that were based off of merely plant life alone...a hemp & organic cotton blend. Then after sorting through several hemp suppliers, Daniel was able to locate the most affordable supplier in hemptraders.com and so they had paid the warehouse in Los Angeles a visit (Larry the owner is very cool) and purchased the fabric for about $9 a yard to make the 9 yard queen size they needed using 2 different weaving fabric: French Terry & Fleece. At that time, they didn't know how to sew and did not have the machines to make it, so leaning on Britt's aunt who has had vast experience in cut & sew, they were able to construct their first model that is french terry on 1 side for layer 1 and the second layer was that of Fleece, both blended by 55% Natural Hemp & 45% Organic Cotton--very awesomely soft! Total cost? Fabric + thread (90) + cut & sew (lots of cutting since the fabric didn't come in blanket sizes but the labor was free nonetheless; quite a bit of lint everywhere too they'll assure you. =)
To learn more about hemp or to construct your own blanket with the same material, you can refer to this link provided by our super awesome supplier @ HempTraders: http://www.hemptraders.com/Hemp-101-s/1883.htm. Don't tell him that you were referred by us because he'll likely charge you more! =) only kidding. We hope he'll give you the discounts you needed even though his prices are already low, lowest we've found for such quality.
The Pollination
Why make more and why sell you may ask? As you can tell, living organically and naturally is something we've cared about more and more of to balance the not-so-natural lifestyle we've both led over the years. And seeing the benefits that it has done for us, we wanted to help others that came before us to spread the awareness about the priceless benefits it will do for the millions of people out there suffering from advanced diseases in this supposedly advanced technological world. With the support of our friends and family who claims to be unbiased about their high regards for the blanket's simplistic natural appeal, quality & comfort, we decided to make more to sell to those who sees the value in it and give to those who can't afford that value. Hopefully, with this support and continual giving of blankets, we can inspire others to do the same to help our humanity's overall health, in turn benefiting the environment with less plastic pollution. <3
Why BAD?
Like most others, in caring about people and the philosophies/values that dictate our minds-->behavior-->actions, our friends and us have coined the term BAD to represent a non-discrimnatory mentality of love that stands for Beyond.All.Differences. It was oxymoronic--not sure if that's a real word--so we thought it sounded cool and being that it also matches our names, Brittanny and Daniel, gave it extra meaning for us; not to make it about us. <3 Though we are no saint and so conditioned to be individuals in this currently independently-praised individualistic world, we care to gain more of this mentality so that we can overcome certain discriminations that keeps us from understanding, accepting, and collaborating with others around us. Hopefully, together with the physical aspect of health, this philosophy embedded in the "bad" blankies will help us heal people in more folds than one.
Where We Are NOW
It's been a little over 3 years since we've started and quite a bit has changed. Our mentality, our lives, and of course, the bad blankies. The blankets, instead of being french terry on one side and fleece on the other is now a double fleece because we've discovered from our customers, whom sleeps with pets, that the french terry side tend to snag. Of course, we too sleep with our bundle of pug joy, MAX, so we can easily empathize. Besides, the fleece substitution provided an additional 5-10 degrees of warmth for those living in colder regions so our new customers were happy about that as well!
Our prices at the onset went from $150 for a QUEEN size to $210 because we're now paying more to get it retailing standards. Then it went up again to $240 because we wanted to get into the retail space and work with people that share the same passion. Since they needed their margins, we had to raise our prices. Sadly, that's making the blanket less accessible so we are not entirely happy about that. Therefore, our intentions now, if not already, is to either take it out of the retails or sell it to them with little to no profit and consider that the cost of co-joined partnership. We believe we're going to end up taking that route so that we can reduce that price back to $210 for the queen size and hope that the world will approve. Of course, the prices for all other sizes will decrease proportionally as well. =)
Current Products We Have and... Our Future
As of now, the team is still Brittanny, MaxToo, and myself making blankets out of Brittanny's parents' lovely spacious home (filling it with oh-so-many lint I might add) and the sizes we currently have are baby (54x36inches); twin (90x66); twin-xl (108x66); full/queen (108x80); and the mighty King Size (108x108"). We are in the works of adding a receiving blanket made of hemp muslin (because of it's easy baby-wrapping nature) of size 42x42 inch so that we can dedicate that as an entry to organic living with new babies in this world. This we intend to only give away in hopes of replacing the standard receiving blankets that the hospital provides. Additionally, we've been working on making men & women underwear made of the same blend of fibers--different texture--the past couple of years and through so many trials and error, we believe we are down to the final stretches so are very excited to release that in the near future. Hopefully through more inspirations derived from our personal needs, we can continue to introduce more organic alternatives for personal health environmentally-conscious folks out there to enjoy.
Thank You so much for stopping by and getting to know us. We'd love to get to know you as well so should you get the opportunity, please feel welcomed to reach out to us. We are Brittanny & Daniel and we are here to serve you for a more balanced health & environment.
<3 
Britt@ilovebad.com | Daniel@ilovebad.com
Oh, and not to forget. We'd love to give a shout out to the awesome retailers, our partners, that have allowed and mentored us in this organic living industry: Seeds Peoples Market store (Costa Mesa); Organic Lifestyle store (Toronto); and soon to be Nest Bedding in the Northern California bay area region. Thank you guys for lending us your experience and allowing us to co-join your mission to spread the knowledge of healthy living. We care not to do this without y'all! <3
