Two logos turn up on almost every children's garment that positions itself as safer, and most parents have absorbed the idea that both are good without ever being told what either one covers.
They are not competing versions of the same promise. GOTS certifies the fibre and the process that turns it into cloth. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifies the finished object. One follows the supply chain, the other tests what comes out of it.
What GOTS guarantees
The Global Organic Textile Standard starts at the fibre. For a product to carry the GOTS "organic" label it must contain at least 95% certified organic fibre[2]. The lower grade, "made with organic", requires 70%. There is no third tier: below 70% the logo cannot be used.
From there the standard follows the chain. Independent auditors track the material from seed to finished goods, and certification covers the processing stages in between: spinning, knitting, dyeing, finishing, packing. The standard also enforces labour criteria aligned with ILO conventions, which is unusual for a textile label and is the part most people do not realise they are buying.
Version 7.0[1] tightened three things worth knowing. It maintains a general ban on toxic and harmful chemicals, PFAS included. It reduces the permitted quantity of recycled synthetic fibre, explicitly because of microplastics and fibre quality. And it introduces risk-based due diligence obligations modelled on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD guidelines.
What OEKO-TEX Standard 100 guarantees
That third point is the one that separates GOTS from a chemical test. A test tells you what a sample contained on a given day. An audited chain tells you how the thing was made.
OEKO-TEX comes at it from the opposite end. It takes the finished product and asks whether anything harmful ended up in it.
Every thread, button and accessory is tested against a list of over 1,000 harmful substances[3]. That last part matters more than it sounds: the test does not stop at the outer fabric, so the zip, the print and the sewing thread are in scope too.
Products are then sorted into four classes according to how much skin contact they involve. Class 1, the strictest, covers products for babies and children up to three years. The more skin contact, the tighter the limits.
What it does not do is require organic fibre or audit the supply chain. A polyester garment can hold a valid OEKO-TEX certificate and still be plastic, made in conditions the certificate says nothing about. That is not a flaw. It is simply a different question.
A label tells you what somebody agreed to be audited on. That is not the same as a promise about the garment in your hands.
Does GOTS guarantee there are no PFAS?
This is the question that brings most people to the subject, and it has a clean answer for once.
Yes, within its scope. GOTS version 7.0 maintains a general ban on toxic and harmful chemicals, PFAS included[1], as part of its restricted substances list. A certified processor cannot apply them.
The comparison that gives that weight is the law. The EU restricts PFHxA, one PFAS compound, in clothing and footwear from 10 October 2026[4]. France brought in a broader textile ban in January 2026 and Denmark in July. GOTS got there first and went wider, which is what a voluntary standard is supposed to do.
Worth being precise about the limit, though. The ban applies to what a certified processor is allowed to use. It is a rule about production, not a laboratory certificate stating that a particular garment has been tested and found free of a substance. If you need that specific claim, the substance testing that OEKO-TEX performs[3] is the closer instrument.
How to tell whether a garment is really certified
A logo printed on a label costs nothing to print. Both schemes know it, and both publish the means to check.
For GOTS, correct labelling shows four things together: the registered GOTS logo, the label grade ("organic" or "made with organic"), the certification body, and the licence number or the name of the certified entity. If the grade or the licence number is missing, the label is not correct, whatever the logo suggests.
There is a public database of certified suppliers[5], and it is useful. But GOTS itself is careful about what it proves: a database entry cannot be used as definitive verification of certified status. What you actually want is the Scope Certificate, which is available on the company's database entry and which you can ask any supplier for directly. It names the certifier, the scope and the period of validity.
For OEKO-TEX, every certificate has a number. Scan the QR code on the label, or type the number into Label Check[6], and the association's own database will tell you whether it is currently valid and what it covers. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Side by side
| GOTS | OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 | |
| What it certifies | Fibre and process | The finished product |
| Organic fibre required | Yes, 95% or 70% by grade | No |
| Supply chain audited | Yes, seed to finished goods | No |
| Substance testing | Restricted substances list, PFAS banned | Over 1,000 harmful substances, every component |
| Labour criteria | Yes, aligned with ILO conventions | No |
| Applies to synthetics | Only within strict limits | Yes, any fibre |
| How to verify | Licence number, Scope Certificate | Certificate number, Label Check |
Read across those rows and the practical rule falls out. If the question is what the garment is made of and who made it, GOTS answers it. If the question is what is in the finished object right now, OEKO-TEX answers it. A garment with both has answered both questions, and most garments answer neither.
What we have, and what we do not
Our main fabrics carry GOTS traceability documented through Transaction Certificates, and our manufacturing partner operates within a valid GOTS certified system with a Scope Certificate we can produce on request.
Albor is not a GOTS certified brand. Brand-level certification is a separate scope that a company applies for and is audited against, and we have not done it. In practice that means we cannot print the GOTS logo on our garments as a product mark, and we do not.
We are telling you this in an article that would read better without the paragraph. The reason is simple: a certification claim is only worth anything if the person making it is precise about its edges, and "GOTS certified brand" is the single most common overstatement in this category. If a brand cannot tell you which certificate covers what, the logo is decoration.
The exact composition of every fabric we use is published, including the 5% elastane in the rib at the cuffs and neckline.
On our site: Certifications · Our materials · Glossary
