Comment pouvons-nous vous aider?

Two possibilities.

The product was in stock. The order leaves Québec City as soon as it is packed. You receive an email with the tracking number when it ships, and that tracking gives you the expected delivery date.

The product was on pre-order. The estimated ship date is shown on the product page and in your confirmation. The order ships after that date, not before.

Small orders sent by stamp (seeds, seed bombs) have no tracking number.

Tracking activates when the carrier picks up the parcel, not when the label is created. A “label created” status for a few days is normal.

If nothing moves after a week, write to us with your order number. We check on our end and follow up with the carrier if needed.

First check the post office listed in the tracking, with a neighbour, and the address on your order confirmation. Most cases are solved right there.

Otherwise, write to us with your order number. We open an investigation with the carrier and find a solution with you.

Free shipping on orders of $99 and up, anywhere in Canada. An expedited option (Xpresspost) is offered at checkout.

Parcels leave Québec City by Canada Post. Transit time depends on the destination: the tracking number gives you the expected delivery date as soon as the order ships.

Orders don't ship the same day: allow for packing time, and for a pre-order, the date shown on the product page.

Yes. Lasclay ships to the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. Rates are shown in the cart based on the destination.

Seeds and seed bombs to the United States. They ship by stamp, without a tracking number.

Write to us as soon as possible at hey@lasclay.com with your order number.

As long as the order hasn't shipped, we can correct the address, change a size or colour, add an item or cancel. Once the parcel has left, an address change may involve carrier fees, which will be charged to you.

Yes, two pickup points, to choose at checkout. No shipping fees.

Québec City: our workshop in Limoilou, by appointment. You receive an email with a link to book a time once the order is ready.

Montréal: the shop Les Défricheuses, 1319 Beaubien Street East. Show your confirmation email and your order number (it starts with L-) once you get the notice that the order has arrived.

Two measurements are enough: the width across the knuckles and the total length of the hand. Where you measure matters, half a centimetre can change the size.

If you fall between two sizes, take the larger one. A slightly roomier mitten keeps your fingers away from the seams and stays warmer.

Contradictory result? Send us a photo of your hand next to a ruler or tape measure and we will confirm the size.

See the size guide with photos

Three measurements: chest, waist and hips, taken with a soft tape measure without pulling tight. Between two sizes, take the larger one. As a last resort, take the size of your usual winter coats.

See the coat and vest guide

If you wear a half size, take the size up. An unpadded 6 mm band surrounds the insulated part, which leaves room to trim the outline.

You can exchange it within 15 days of delivery, as long as the product has not been worn or washed. We will ask you to confirm your measurements against the product's size guide.

The exchange is free: we send you a prepaid return label, and the right size ships as soon as the parcel gets back to us.

• 15 days after delivery to write to us.
• Product in new condition: unworn, unwashed, no odour or marks.
• Final sale items cannot be returned or exchanged.
• Only purchases made on lasclay.com are eligible.
• Your choice: exchange or refund. The exchange is free; the refund carries a $9.99 fee.
• The refund goes back to the original payment method; how long it takes to show up depends on your bank.

1. Write to hey@lasclay.com or on Messenger with your order number and what you would like (exchange or refund).
2. You receive a prepaid return label by email.
3. You have 10 days to mail the parcel. Reuse the Lasclay packaging if you kept it, stick on the label, and drop it in a mailbox or at the counter.
4. Once received and inspected, we move straight to the exchange or refund.

The exchange is free. For a refund, a $9.99 handling fee is deducted. It is mainly there to prevent abuse.

Write to us with one or two photos of the problem and your order number. A seam coming apart, a missing part, the wrong item received: in most cases we sort it out without asking you to send the product back.

Milkweed floss is a hollow fibre: each fibre traps air inside, and that air is what insulates. It is very light, naturally water-repellent, plant-based and free of animal materials.

The warmth of a finished product also depends on its outer fabric, its thickness and how it is used. Our job is to turn the fibre's properties into products that hold up in real life.

Everything about milkweed as insulation

A little, like any insulation, but it keeps its insulating power. Many insulations rely on the air between the fibres, which disappears under compression. In milkweed, the air is held inside each hollow fibre, and it stays there.

Water-resistant, not 100% waterproof. The outer fabric, a tightly woven polyester, sheds water long enough to shake it off, and the milkweed fibre is itself water-repellent, inside and out. We chose not to use plastic membranes so your hands can breathe.

Official answer: 1 to 2 years depending on the product. That said, even if we can't promise it unilaterally, we have applied the equivalent of a lifetime warranty on most of our products since the beginning. It is our way of thanking the valued customers who trusted us and were patient through our imperfect early years.

If you have a problem, write to us at hey@lasclay.com and we will bend over backwards to make it right!

Seed bombs germinate when the soil stays above 20 °C for several days in a row. If they arrive before the season, keep them in the fridge. If they have already started to sprout, set them on the surface of a pot of soil under clear plastic, near a sunny window.

Allow for a season of patience: milkweed flowers from the second year on.

Read the planting guide

Yes. Our seeds are not stratified: plan on about 30 days in the cold before sowing. It delays planting a little, but it gives the best germination rates.

It happens. Germination depends on the soil type, sunlight, watering and temperature. Write to us and tell us where, when and how you planted: we will advise you, and we reship the seed bombs you ordered, right away or for the next planting season.

Vigorous, yes; invasive, no. Common milkweed is a native plant perfectly adapted to our ecosystems, and it spreads through its rhizomes. Nothing like giant hogweed or Japanese knotweed, which are harmful exotic plants.

If you are short on space, butterfly milkweed, swamp milkweed and tall milkweed spread much less.

Every species we offer in packets or seed bombs suits zones 3 to 9, which covers populated Québec and most of North America.

Milkweed latex is toxic, but so bitter that a child, dog or cat will never eat enough to get sick. The real risk is for livestock, when dried milkweed ends up in hay and loses its bitter taste. In a garden or a field, the danger is greatly overestimated.

A 4-cell stick covers about 4 square feet, or 1 square foot per cell. Give common milkweed more room, since it spreads; butterfly and swamp milkweed can be sown closer together.

No, quite the opposite. The caterpillars eat the leaves and the butterflies feed on the flowers, from spring to late summer. The floss we harvest is in the pods, in the fall, when the monarchs have already left for Mexico.

Giving milkweed economic value gives farmers a reason to grow it rather than pull it out. The more of it there is in the fields, the more places monarchs have to breed.

The monarch butterfly and milkweed

Not one specific butterfly, and we won't claim it does. Each purchase supports a supply chain that makes milkweed profitable to grow, and therefore more present in the landscape. It is a systemic link, not a one-for-one offset.

The milkweed comes from Québec, always. It is grown in several regions: Capitale-Nationale, Charlevoix, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Lac-Saint-Jean and Chaudière-Appalaches. The floss is processed into insulation in the Eastern Townships, in Cowansville. Our operations and our research and development happen at our workshop in Limoilou, in Québec City.

The textile assembly of most finished products is done by partners outside Québec, mainly in Tunisia. The insulation leaves from here, is assembled there, and comes back inside the product. For the coats, the shell is made in Tunisia; the insulation and the removable inserts remain Québec-made. That is what makes accessible prices possible: the sleeveless vest at $199.99, the light coat at $269.99 and the winter coat at $379.99. Why? Québec's textile industry no longer has certain skills or the machinery for technical pieces at an accessible price. Doing everything here would have made milkweed unaffordable.

Several products are still made in Québec, in whole or in part: the skincare products (except the Monarch Botanika products), the pillows and the milkweed seeds.

Does your product have a “made in Québec” label? That is normal. During the transition of our manufacturing model, we are selling through the remaining Québec-made inventory first, while supplies last.

In every case, all of the milkweed in our products, even those assembled abroad, comes only, and always will, from Québec plantations.

They are the first two syllables of “asclépiade”, the French word for milkweed: L'AS-CLÉ. It is pronounced “Lass-clay” in French and in English. Spelling it with a y avoids accents, which are impossible in a domain name, and makes an invented word that Google doesn't autocorrect to “la clé”.

Visa, MasterCard, American Express and PayPal, as well as Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Check that there is no space before or after the code, and that the products in your cart are eligible. Only one code can be applied per order.

Forgot the code? Write to us within the next few days with your order number. If the code was valid at the time of purchase, we refund the difference.

Yes. Write to hey@lasclay.com with your order number: we send you the invoice as a PDF, with our GST and QST numbers.

If you are a registered person under the Indian Act and the order is delivered to an address on a First Nation, you are entitled to the tax exemption. Write to us: we create an account so that your current and future orders are exempt.

This answer was written by people who are not from Indigenous communities. If a wording seems inaccurate or clumsy to you, tell us and we will correct it.

Yes. Write to operations@lasclay.com and tell us which products interest you, the volumes you have in mind and your type of business (shop, organization, firm purchase or consignment). We send you the B2B catalogue.

Possible on several products, starting at around ten items. Send us your logo (vector preferred), the quantity and your target date at operations@lasclay.com. Allow extra time during the holiday season.

We receive many requests and can't say yes to all of them. Write to us describing the project, its connection to milkweed or pollinators, and what you are looking for. We answer based on what we can do at the time.