Peace Silk: A Kinder Way to Experience Mulberry Silk | Juniper
Traditional silk production boils the cocoon before the moth emerges. Peace silk lets it emerge naturally first, keeping the same softness with none of the cost.
Short answer: peace silk, also called ahimsa silk, is produced by letting the silkworm fully mature into a moth and leave its cocoon naturally, rather than harvesting the cocoon while the pupa is still inside. It's a gentler process, and it's the one behind Juniper's own silk.
How it differs from conventional silk
Conventional silk reeling harvests the cocoon while the pupa is still inside, since an intact cocoon unwinds as one continuous filament, which is what makes conventional silk thread so fine and strong. Peace silk waits until the moth has emerged naturally, which breaks the cocoon into shorter segments that have to be spun together rather than reeled as one filament.
What that trade-off means in practice
The result is a fabric that's ever so slightly less uniform than reeled silk, but produced without harming the silkworm, and full use is made of the cocoon that's left behind, including the outer layers and leftover fibres that would otherwise go to waste.
How Juniper uses it
Our mulberry silk is peace silk: the silkworms mature fully and leave their cocoons on their own, and the factory uses as much of the cocoon as it can to keep waste down. It's part of why our silk is ethically sourced, not just a claim on the label.
If you're deciding between our silk pillowcase and sleep mask, both are made from the same peace silk, at the same 28 momme weight.