Every once in a while we find an awesome clothing company that lives up to our standards, but is outside of the yoga community.  We found one such awesome company located in Canada and focusing on serving women in the biking community.  Founder of Black Dog Asana Maggie Franz is a bit of a biking enthusiast so she became really excited when she came across Loeka.  Their mission is simple but important – to design and create clothing that not only fits women’s unique shape but also performs.  After testing out their clothing, we’re happy to say that they’re rocking it out.  Loeka was awesome and sent us two different shirts to try out: the Tank Top and Long Sleeve Shirt.  Their Lifestyle clothing is made from a combination of cotton, bamboo and lycra which makes this clothing stretchable, breathable, wearable and over the top comfortable.  These shirts are great for hoping on a bike, rolling out your mat or just running some errands.

What we really liked about the Loeka long sleeve shirt was that it fit the bill of the “additional layer” we all love in yoga perfectly.  When you practice yoga it’s nice to start out with an additional layer on during the beginning of your practice.  The when you hit the Sun Salutations and increase your internal body temperature it’s great to shed this layer.  This body heat helps protect the body as you move through asanas and stretch different muscle groups.  This heated part of the practice makes up roughly the first part of your time on the mat.  The other part of the practice is the cooling side or lunar side of the practice.  Once more this additional layer comes in handy.  When you start to cool the body down it is great to put that layer, in this case the long sleeve shirt – that’s complete with our favorite thumb holes, back on.  This sets you up for a wonderful savasana – where you’re not focusing on how chilly you are.

The short sleeve shirt from Loeka works great for yoga as well.  Made from the same material it is great for moving, and sweating it.  The fabric is breathable and allows for comfort when you’ve worked to raise that body temperature.  It also moves with you quite comfortably.  When you are moving from pose to pose you don’t want to have a shirt (or pants for that matter) that you constantly have to readjust.  There is also an added benefit to this short sleeve shirt (the long sleeve as well), because of how wonderfully this shirt performs, you are able to keep wearing it off the mat.  We love to practice yoga both indoors and outdoors.  When you’re practicing in a cool environment (you don’t always have to practice in a hot room) yoga becomes not just a work out but a restorative practice as well.  It’s nice to be able to hop up after a relaxing savasana and continuing about your day without having to run and change out of your yoga clothing (if wearing your yoga stuff out and about isn’t your thing.).

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I AM Yoga Mat Bags

We did it – we found a company that is just hands down completely awesome.  We like to think that all of the companies whose products we feature here are awesome – but this company is raising the bar.  Imagine this: a company cares so much about their product that they are taking the time to make it by hand, and then they care about their workers so much that they find the best and most deserving women and pay them well above the meager salaries other people in their countries are paid, then they assemble it extremely well… oh and it looks awesome. It sounds too good to be true right?  Well we have been shown that it does exist.  I AM is making kick butt yoga mat bags from hand woven fabrics by loverly ladies in Guatemala.  My bag was made by Maria…how do I know? She signed the bag! How often do you find a product where you get to see who made it? It’s blowing our minds.

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