Yoga is undoubtedly in fashion at the moment and many yoga enthusiasts love the environmentally friendly story that cork brings with it, so cork yoga bricks are extremely popular at the moment. We have come up with a new cork yoga brick that is made out of natural cork rather than agglomerated cork – agglomerated cork is made from tiny cork granules that are glued together, whereas natural cork uses larger strips of natural cork that are cut direct from the cork tree bark.
As an aside it is worth noting that unfortunately much of the cork industry has been infected with inferior or fake cork products coming out of China (much of the cork leather on the market is now completely fake and synthetic) and some agglomerated cork products (such as yoga bricks) are being made in China with cheaper materials used to pad out the cork granules. Generally speaking quality cork products are all made in Portugal, the true home of cork and if you are buying any ‘cork’ product that is not from Portugal it is worthwhile having a good look at how genuine it is.
Anyway, back to natural cork yoga bricks – their appearance is completely different to agglomerated cork as you can see the natural imperfections that comes from the cork bark and the feel is softer (although less smooth). Agglomerated cork has a more manufactured feel to it (because it has been manufactured and can contain up to 20% of glue, which makes it harder (more dense) and of course less environmentally friendly as the glue is not biodegradable). Natural cork blocks do have a very small amount of glue in them as the natural strips have to be bonded together, but it is a tiny fraction of the amount found in agglomerated cork. Below you can see a photo of a natural cork yoga bricks – as you can see it is not completely smooth, but there is a gorgeous organic feel and softness to it.
The other thing to note about natural cork yoga bricks is that they are about 50% more expensive than agglomerated cork, because they cannot be made in an industrialised process like agglomerated cork and the natural cork strips are assembled by hand into blocks and then bonded in vices. Below you can see the strips of natural cork as they appear before they are bonded together into blocks.
We can supply natural cork yoga bricks in pretty much any size based on minimum orders of 100 units. Pricing works out at around double the price of standard agglomerated cork yoga bricks however.
If you are interested in the environmental story behind cork, you can read more about it here: https://www.corklink.com/index.php/the-cork-industy-where-nothing-gets-wasted/ – it really is one of the most environmentally friendly products on the planet and one of the key things that many people do not realise is that cork trees are not cut down to make cork, as only the bark is removed, which grows back every 9 years.
If you are interested in ordering natural cork yoga bricks, please let us know your requirements for a detailed quotation.
