OEKO-TEX Covers the Cloth, Not Always Your Shade: The Coverage Check Before Bulk Dyeing

An OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certificate is a one-year certification of a company and a named list of articles, and the shade list sits in the annex that travels with the certificate. The holder is usually the dyehouse or finisher that wet-processed the cloth, not the weaver who quoted the price. The question from a stockist’s compliance team is therefore narrower than whether the mill is certified. The question is whether your article line and your shade appear on that certificate’s scope, and whether the certificate is live on the day the bulk is dyed. A number cannot answer either point. Five fields can: holder, article, product class, shade line and expiry, plus the Label Check result. The free Label Check settles the last point, but only when the number is typed in the exact case the certificate prints. The check starts on the annex page, for example the page that names the shades, and it belongs before the dye bath is set.

Who Actually Holds the Certificate

An OEKO-TEX certificate holder is the company that applied for certification and completed the process, which ends with an on-site visit and a certificate issued for one year. In wool coating that company is normally the dyehouse or the finisher, because wet processing is where the chemistry is applied and where an auditor has something to inspect. The weaver may hold a certificate for greige, or for a different article, or none at all, and simply forward its upstream partner’s number. This is how a mill stays honest and still sends a number that never covered your cloth. According to OEKO-TEX, the certification path runs from application through sample verification, testing, an on-site visit and a test report, and the resulting certificate is valid for one year. Ask who is named as holder, and whether that company will dye your lot.

Why One Cloth Can Carry Two Different Numbers

Wool coating usually passes through two companies before it reaches you. A weaver makes greige, a dyehouse or finisher turns it into the cloth you buy, and each company buys its own certification for the articles it sells. When the weaver quotes you, its certificate covers a greige article. When the dyehouse processes your lot, the dyed article needs its own coverage, and that coverage lives on the dyehouse certificate. A trader in the middle may hold neither and pass along whichever number it was given. This is why two suppliers can both say certified and mean different things. Ask each one which article, which holder and which date. The answer tells you whether one certificate covers your cloth or whether two have to line up, and it takes one email to find out. If only one number appears in the whole correspondence, the second certificate may not exist.

Reading the Scope Before the Dye Bath Is Set

The scope is the section of the certificate that names what is certified, and it is the only section that answers your question. A screenshot of a certificate number proves a number exists. The scope proves which articles carry it, which is a different claim. Read the scope against the order, line by line, rather than against the mill’s summary of the order. Then read the expiry date, because a certificate issued for one year can lapse between your lab dip and your shipment. Ask for the full certificate with its annex pages, since a one-page certificate image forwarded by a sales office usually stops before the article list. OEKO-TEX also publishes a list of withdrawn certificates and labels, so a live number and a live certificate are two separate checks. If any line cannot be matched to the order, the number is not evidence yet. The five fields below turn that reading into a routine.

Which Five Fields Decide Whether a Shade Is Covered?

A certificate’s coverage is the list of article lines and shade lines its scope names, and five fields decide whether a specific cloth sits on that list. First, the holder field names the certified company. Second, the article field names the tested cloth, for example a dyed woven wool fabric of a stated composition and weight. Third, product class sets test strictness: according to OEKO-TEX, STANDARD 100 screens for over 1,000 harmful substances across four classes, and a coating cloth without direct skin contact normally sits in PC3 rather than PC1. Fourth, the shade field is what a stockist’s compliance team reads first, and the field most often vague or absent. Fifth, the expiry field sets the date when coverage stops. OEKO-TEX lists over 35,000 companies in the certified network, and in 2026 the Label Check remains the public lookup for a number. Read all five in order, since one missed field is how bulk cloth gets dyed uncovered.

Coverage Check: What Each Field Proves

The coverage check adds the Label Check result to those five fields, and the order matters because each field narrows the next one.

Colour Range or Per-Shade Listing

Colour coverage is written in one of two ways on a certificate, and the difference decides whether your order is already inside the scope. A colour range line covers a family of shades by name and dye class, and it means the dyehouse may dye within that family without going back to the institute. A per-shade listing names individual shades, and anything outside that list is not covered, however close it looks on a colour card. Your stockist’s compliance person is checking for the second kind of line. Open the annex and find which style you have, then look for your shade reference or colour name, not only the mill’s internal code. If the annex shows a range and your shade falls inside it, ask the dyehouse to confirm in writing that the shade is dyed within that range.

How to Test One Shade Against the Annex

Place the approved lab dip, the annex page and the dyehouse shade number side by side and read them in one pass. The lab dip tells you what you approved. The annex tells you what the certificate carries. The dyehouse shade number tells you what will actually be dyed. A match between the first and third, with no line on the second, is the exact situation your stockist flagged. Keep the approved dip signed and dated, because that dip is the reference the whole coverage argument hangs on, and the signing step is worth settling before bulk dye rather than after it. If the annex lists a range, print the range line and attach it to the order file so the next audit does not reopen the same question. Date the printout as well, because an annex page is only as good as the certificate revision it came from.

When the Shade Is Missing: The Extension Route

An extension is the formal route for adding an article or a shade to an existing certificate, and only the certificate holder can request it. The holder sends the new sample to the OEKO-TEX member institute that issued the certificate, the institute tests it against the same limit values, and the certificate is amended if it passes. Two consequences follow. Only the holder can start the process, so your request travels through the dyehouse. The clock also starts when the institute receives a production-representative sample, not when you send an email. A certificate cannot be extended by a party that is not named on it, so a trader cannot apply on your behalf through its own account. That is why the extension decision belongs before the dye bath and not after the first roll leaves the frame. The whole request comes down to four items and one written confirmation.

What Does the Dyehouse Send to the Institute?

An extension request is a four-item package that only the certificate holder can send, and the packages that fail usually fail on one item. First, the certificate number and holder name, copied exactly as printed, because the OEKO-TEX Label Check is case sensitive. Second, the article description and qualification the new shade belongs to. Third, a production-representative sample of the dyed cloth, cut from the bulk lot rather than from a lab beaker, in the composition and weight that will ship. Fourth, the colour reference, meaning the mill shade number plus the brand reference where one exists. Ask the dyehouse to confirm in writing which items went and on what date, and ask for the tracking reference. In practice, a beaker sample shows what the dyehouse can achieve, not what the bulk lot contains. Melange, heather, blend and print effects need their own line in the request, because a plain dyed reference does not describe them.

What the Buyer Puts in Writing

Your side of an extension is a short written request, not a phone call. State the shade, the order quantity and the dye date, then ask for the amended certificate or a dated written confirmation before dyeing starts. Ask who pays the extension fee and take the amount from the institute’s quote rather than from the mill’s estimate. Set a decision date, and state that the lot does not dye against the old number if the amendment has not arrived by then. Keep that exchange in the order file, because a compliance team that rejects a shade asks for the paper trail, not the explanation. The purchase order can carry most of this in two sentences, and those sentences cost nothing to write.

The Three Lines on the Order and the Two Fallbacks

Three lines in the purchase order turn a certificate claim into something you can enforce. First, the certificate number, the holder name and the expiry date, copied from the certificate rather than from an email signature. Second, the article line from the scope that your cloth falls under, quoted word for word with the product class, in the same fields a modelo de RFQ de tecido already asks for. Third, the shade line, either the shade as listed on the annex or a dated commitment that an extension will be granted before the dye date. If coverage never arrives you have two honest routes: extend before dyeing and accept the delay, or drop the claim from the hangtag, the spec sheet and the product page and rely on your own test report, the way a claim file works when an invoice is the only paper you hold. A claim you cannot evidence is worse than no claim.