What to wear? As with our diets, our clothing choices may find us unthinkingly doing things to our bodies that are very definitely bad for us. Like processed foods that aren’t really food, most of the clothes in our closets aren’t doing us any favors.
What Are the Issues with Toxic Clothing?
A garment may have used literally thousands of chemicals in its manufacture, almost all of them dangerous. For many textile and clothing makers, business as usual means using cheap-but-nasty chemicals — poisoning workers — to make cheap-but-nasty fabrics, to make cheap-and-attractive-but-nasty clothing — “fast fashion,” and dumping the resulting toxic trash into rivers, landfills, and the air.
So if you think fabrics are fine because you don’t feel sick when you wear them, hang around; that may change. Keep in mind that with many chemicals, you may not be aware of damage happening; it’s the toxic load over time that accumulates in your body that takes you down.
Lack of Breathability
You’re always being advised to drink a lot of water because your body loses so much of it through the skin every day. When you wear clothing made of fabrics that don’t “breathe,” that moisture gets trapped next to your skin. Not only does this make a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus, and cause body odor, it also makes it easy for toxins to leach out of the fabric and into your skin, which is, of course, porous.
So you get set up for allergic skin reactions — eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, acne, etc. — and also for illnesses caused by having toxic substances soak into your body — cancer, reproductive problems, immune disease, etc.
Your skin has thousands of pores that breathe for your body, absorb moisture (and other substances), and release sweat via “sweat pores” connected to sweat glands under the skin. Sweating is one way the body detoxifies itself, and when pores are blocked, as by synthetic fabrics, that natural detox process is short-circuited.
Dangerous Chemicals
Your body heat causes chemicals to offgas from your clothing. Formaldehyde is commonly used in synthetic fabric production and garment processing, as are dyes, solvents, resins, adhesives, chemical additives, heavy metals such as cadmium, phthalates (plasticizers), chlorobenzenes, PFAs (fluoropolymers), PFCs (perfluorochemicals), lead, chromium, ammonia, antimony, and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) such as toluene, ethylene glycol, benzene, methylene chloride, 1,3-butadiene, xylene, and tetrachloroethylene, etc.
These substances can remain in finished garments, being released against your skin or offgassing for you and those around you to breathe.
And, of course, they poisoned the workers who made your clothes and they poisoned the Earth and its waterways, which were used as dumping grounds for the toxic manufacturing wastes.
Effects include infertility, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, cancer, developmental and reproductive systems damage, liver and respiratory problems, and skin irritation.
Especially avoid any fabric advertised as antimicrobial, stain-resistant, flame-retardant, wrinkle-resistant, permanent press, colorfast, easy-to-clean, etc. These are going to have a heavy toxic footprint.
Azo dyes break down on skin to release aromatic amines, which may be carcinogenic. These are banned in the EU, but common in the U.S. Products made in Europe have to follow stricter policies re Azo dyes, so, if you can, it’s good to find out where the garment was made. Plant dyes, Azo-free dyes, and undyed fabrics are alternatives.
Discomfort, Stress, Anxiety
You may not be aware how much your itchy, rashy, painful skin affects your state of mind. Even if the discomfort is just a background “noise” in your day (and night), the cumulative impact of wearing toxic clothing can wipe you out, exhaust you, make you anxious, and cause you stress.
Synthetic Fibers
Synthetic fabrics — polyester, acrylic, acetate, spandex, nylon, microfiber — are made from fossil fuels. These are essentially plastic clothes. They have many harmful chemicals embedded in them, which can off-gas and leach out.
Synthetics still account for more than half of all production, especially fast fashion garments. They require a lot of nasty chemicals for processing, and you end up with a toxic, man-made fiber that poisons you and doesn’t behave anything like a skin covering should.
Synthetics are cheap, they don’t wrinkle, and can look great. They blend well with lots of types of other fabrics, making those fabrics stronger, cheaper, and less prone to wrinkle.
They also don’t let your skin breathe, with all the bad effects that go with that. They trap moisture next to your skin, promoting rashes and infections and allowing entry of toxic substances from the clothing through your pores. They also trap and retain body odor, making you and your clothes stink. And, of course, you get set up for hormonal dysfunction, compromised immunity, skin cancer, other cancers, rashes, itching, etc.
Synthetics are not biodegradable. They shed microplastics that tend to bind with molecules of harmful chemical pollutants found in wastewater, such as pesticides. They can be recycled, but rarely are, since new plastic is cheap. Wearing recycled snythetics, in an attempt at sustainability, is just as bad for your body as wearing regular plastics.
The popularity of synthetics in North America and Europe is waning, but they are increasingly popular in Asia, Africa, and South America, where they are being strongly promoted.
Polyester
Although polyester seems like cloth, it’s still plastic. And plastic has been shown to be dangerous to our bodies and to the Earth. Would you wear a plastic bag?
Skin exposure to Polyester can cause rashes, itching, redness, eczema, dermatitis, blistering or make existing skin problems worse for those with sensitive skin, up to 3 days later. Heat releases Polyester chemicals like Antimony oxide Sb2O3, which is used to make Polyester and is a known carcinogen. With body heat, it is partially dissolved with sweat and absorbed by the skin. It can cause heart, liver, kidney and skin ailments. When the Polyester gasses are inhaled, Formaldehyde and other Perfluorochemicals (PFCs) can cause lung problems and headaches. The American Academy of Pediatrics wrote about the seriousness of PFC’s. Kid’s pajamas with Polyester are terrible for them too. A huge study in New Zealand found fire retardants in 200,000 crib mattresses were the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). They have some of the same chemical gasses as Polyester. Polyester in pillows and bedding is a huge cause of insomnia, headaches, fatigue and bad rest since it doesn’t let your body regulate its temperature…. And because polyester is highly flammable, it is often treated with a flame retardant, increasing the toxic load.— “Polyester Is Dangerous and Bad for Your Health.”
A polyester garment sheds an estimated 700,000 microplastic particles into the environment every time you wash it. And every time you dry it in your dryer, you are outgassing these heat-sensitive chemicals into your home and the environment.
Fleece
Although technically fleece can be made of lots of different kinds of fabrics, it’s almost always made of polyester — specifically, polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Lightweight, great insulator. Coated with chemicals to resist wind and water.
Eco-fleece is made, at least partially, of recycled polyester, but your body still hates it, and it still sheds microplastic particles.
Nylon
Nylon is a petroleum-based thermoplastic, a synthetic polymer made by forcing diamine acid into reaction with adipic acid. The resulting plastic is melt-processed into strong, stretchy fibers. Producing nylon requires large amounts of energy and water and releases large amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. It’s not biodegradable, but it can be recycled.
Nylon’s a synthetic fiber, so it is produced using hundreds of harmful chemicals, which are dangerous to you, to textile workers, and to the environment. And nylon is hydrophobic — meaning water will get trapped against your skin by it, causing rashes, allergies, respiratory damage, etc. etc. etc.
Since it doesn’t breathe, nylon will make you feel hot and sticky, and you will smell bad. Also, it’s a bit slow to catch fire, but if it does, it will melt — onto your skin.
Microfiber
Microfiber is a combination of polyester and nylon. It consists of ultra-fine plastic particles, which are made into a very soft fabric. It’s durable and is used for cleaning, face masks (it has good electrostatic filtration properties), and in clothing. It feels similar to cotton, but isn’t as absorbent.
It’s just as bad for you as any other synthetic fiber, releasing harmful chemicals, trapping moisture next to your skin, and shedding microplastics in your airspace and into waterways.
Microfiber releases phthalates and formaldehyde, making it especially dangerous for pregnant women. Microfiber attracts flames. People who sleep on microfiber sheets have elevated levels of phthalates in their bodies. Heat-activating the chemicals in microfiber by washing sheets in hot water or putting them in the dryer will make the problem worse.
Spandex
Spandex is a synthetic, petroleum-based fiber, also called elastane, and sometimes trademarked as Lycra. The word “spandex” is an anagram of “expands.” The word “elastane” comes from “elastic urethane.” It’s as bad for you as any other synthetic fiber, trapping moisture next to your skin and leaching toxic substances into your pores. Spandex encourages the growth of bacterial and fungal infections, including yeast infections for women wearing underwear that contains spandex, which almost all of it does.
Spandex is made from at least 85% polyurethane, sourced from nonrenewable crude oil or natural gas. The production process is energy-intensive and polluting. Spandex cannot be recycled, and it sheds microplastics from your washing machine into rivers, oceans, and marine animals and plants.
When you see garments touted as “100% cotton,” or “100% organic cotton,” or “100% linen,” etc., if they’re stretchy, be suspicious. Read the fine print, and you’ll often find these clothes are something like 97% cotton and 3% spandex. The manufacturers want you to ignore the spandex, pretend it doesn’t matter, or at least shrug and accept it as a fact of life. It’s tough/expensive for them to give you the clothing and fashions you want, without using spandex.
But still, the truth is that having even 3% spandex against your skin all day is not acceptable. People wonder why so many of us suffer from chronic illnesses and auto-immune illnesses and cancers — don’t look now, but most people are absorbing poison through their skin 24/7. See our article with more info about spandex, “Why Wearing Spandex Is a Bad Idea.”
Acrylic
Acrylic fiber was originally invented as a synthetic form of wool, so it’s used in a lot of cold-weather clothing, such as sweaters, gloves, and hoodies. It’s very non-breathable, so it retains heat well. So, if you wear it, it will trap your sweat against your skin.
Most people who knit for pleasure use acrylic yarns — it’s hard not to, it’s so prevalent. But a plastic comforter or plastic winter scarf just does not have that cozyness we’d like to associate with objects hand-knitted by people we care about. They don’t feel good. And, oh right, they make you sick.
“As early as 1979, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) became concerned that residual monomers in acrylic fabric may be carcinogenic. This suspicion has since been substantiated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; every time your skin comes into contact with acrylic fibers, your chances of developing cancer increase.” —Sewport.com Fabric Directory
Acrylic fabrics are petroleum-based, composed of at least 85% of a synthetic polymer VOC called acrylonitrile. The production process is volatile, meaning that the manufacturing plants sometimes explode. Hundreds of toxic chemicals are used, and then the waste products are, usually, disposed of in ways that pollute the Earth. On its own, acrylic fabric is highly flammable, which means by the time it reaches you, it has been treated with organophosphate flame retardants.
If you wash acrylic clothing in cold water, it starts to lose its flexibility. If you wash it in hot water, it can melt. So, lol, acrylic needs to be washed in warm water.
Acrylic pills badly. After a bit of wearing, you — and everyone who sees you — can always tell when a sweater has some acrylic in it. If you wash it with other clothes, the pills on your sweater will match the color of other clothes you washed in the same load.
Acrylics are not biodegradable, and they cannot be recycled. They shed microplastics.
Semi-Synthetic Fibers from Cellulose
To produce these semi-synthetic fibers, trees or bamboo are turned into wood pulp, and the cellulose is then processed with powerful synthetic chemicals. Thus, the raw material is plants, but it is processed synthetically to form fibers. The trees are usually fast-growing ones, such as eucalyptus and beech, and they may be raised sustainably in managed forests, or they may be grown on land that has been cleared of natural forest in order to unsustainably grow these fast tree farms. The source crops are less likely to be grown with pesticides than cotton, so you may be starting with a healthier raw material. But then, ugh, carbon disulfide, sulphuric acid, etc. etc.
Acetate
Acetate is the most modified, and most harmful, of the cellulose fiber fabrics. It is a thermoplastic fiber, meaning it can be melted and reformed. Although the raw material is plant-based — usually beech, eucalyptus, and pine trees — manufacturing it uses petroleum-based chemicals, primarily acetic acid, acetic anhydride, and sulfuric acid, and requires a lot of energy. Instead of trees, acetate is sometimes made out of cotton linter, the tiny fibers attached to cotton seeds.
This soft, shiny, flammable fabric is used as a synthetic substitute for silk, and is similarly delicate. Since it’s a thermoplastic, acetate melts, and it also tends to react poorly to water; thus, dry cleaning is usually required for garments lined with acetate.
It’s cheap but not durable. Most lined clothing uses acetate for the lining. It’s often used for costumes, wedding dresses, and graduation gowns, since they won’t be worn much. Fibers that have been shed from acetate reportedly make up over half the microplastics in the Arctic. By the way, it’s in cigarette filters!
Rayons
There are three types of rayons: viscose, which also goes by the name rayon; Modal; and lyocells, such as TENCEL.
Rayons are made from cellulose from pulp from eucalyptus, beech, or pine trees, or from bamboo, or sometimes soy or sugarcane. The pulp is dissolved and spun into fibers that mimic cotton, silk, linen, or wool. The raw material may or may not be grown sustainably — forests are often cut down so the land can be used for pulpwood plantations — but the harmful synthetic chemicals used in the extensive processing needed to make most rayon means that it is not usually friendly to your skin. The exception is lyocell, which uses a much simpler production process with non-harmful and recycled chemicals.
Bamboo is a popular base material for rayon production. A wide array of bed sheets marketed as being made of bamboo are actually bamboo-derived rayon.
Viscose
Most fabric labeled rayon is viscose. The terms are legally interchangeable. Viscose is often used for sheets, since it doesn’t trap heat. It’s hugely popular for fast fashion clothing, the world’s most popular fabric after cotton and polyester.
Viscose is manufactured from tree or bamboo pulp, in a toxic and wasteful process that uses dangerous chemicals, including carbon disulfide, sulphuric acid, caustic soda / lye, ammonia, acetone, and sodium hydroxide, with waste products released in contaminated water and air. These chemicals have been linked to headaches, vomiting, pain, anorexia, Parkinson’s disease, tissue necrosis, and insomnia in people wearing the clothes or sleeping on the sheets. Carbon disulphide is a neurotoxin linked to cancer, reproductive problems, birth defects, heart disease, tuberculosis, skin conditions, etc., in people living near the factories.
Viscose is a staple of the fast fashion industry. Most viscose / rayon fabric is extremely unsustainable, with an estimated third of the wood pulp used in clothing coming from cutting down ancient forests. Many viscose factories in places such as China, India, and Indonesia are highly polluting.
Viscose can be hard to clean, and can discolor or change shape when wet, so it may need to be hand-washed or dry cleaned.
Non-viscose processes for making rayon include modal, which can generally be machine-washed, and lyocell, which avoids the use of caustic chemicals in the manufacturing process.
Bamboo Viscose
Most fabric that is called bamboo is actually bamboo viscose. It’s rayon that has been made with bamboo pulp instead of wood pulp, generally because bamboo’s cheaper. It’s still processed with toxic chemicals, and those can still remain embedded in the fabric and harm you. The rayon fabric doesn’t have any properties specific to bamboo.
There is no such thing as organic bamboo viscose or rayon — it’s a semi-synthetic, and there is no actual bamboo in the fabric by the time it’s finished being processed.
Legally, in the U.S., a garment can only be called bamboo if it’s mechanically produced bamboo. If it’s made in a cellulosic process, it must be labeled as rayon or rayon made from bamboo. However, there are a lot of companies ignoring this law.
The additional characteristics attributed to bamboo, such as anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, odor-resistant, UV-protective, don’t apply once the bamboo has been turned into viscose / rayon. They may be true if the fabric was made using a closed-loop lyocell process (see below) or if it is “bamboo linen,” a natural bamboo fiber produced by mechanically crushing it and treating it with a natural enzyme. Only a small percentage of bamboo is genuine bamboo fabric; it is labor-intensive and expensive to produce, although it still may be cheaper than premium cottons such as Pima or Egyptian.
Bamboo viscose is breathable, moisture-wicking, stretchier than cotton, durable, silky, and soft. It drapes well. It also pills easily and, like other rayons, can be tricky to clean.
Although they both require toxic processing, cotton requires 3 times as much water to grow as bamboo, and uses fertilizers and pesticides that aren’t needed for bamboo — so bamboo is generally ecologically a better choice than cotton, although they’re both bad for your health to wear.
It’s easier to do closed-loop production using bamboo cellulose than with tree cellulose, so bamboo is sometimes made into lyocell. The fabric is similar to viscose, but the bamboo cellulose retains some of the characteristics that bamboo naturally has and that mechanically produced “bamboo linen” has. Lyocell bamboo retains the structure of the cellulose and recaptures the solvents for reuse.
Modal
Modal is a “second generation” rayon that’s better than viscose but not as good as the “third generation” lyocell (below). Modal is made from wood pulp, usually from beech trees. The production process is simpler than for regular viscose and uses fewer chemicals.
TENCEL Modal yarn is made by Lenzing AG and sold to fabric mills; it is certified as more sustainable — using managed forests, and creating less pollution — but that only applies to the yarn, since Lenzing AG has no control over what happens to its yarn once the mill uses it to make fabric.
The word “TENCEL” comes from “ten” for tenacity and “cel” for cellulose.
Stretchy, breathable, silky, lightweight, resists shrinking and pilling, absorbs 50% better than cotton. Modal has the big advantage over viscose that it can be machine-washed.
Modal is not petroleum-based, and it does not shed microplastics. It is biodegradable.
Lyocell
Lyocell is “third generation” rayon, considerably less toxic to manufacture and to wear than viscose or even modal. TENCEL-branded lyocell is the first and most common form, and you’ll often hear the terms TENCEL and lyocell used interchangeably. However, modal can also be TENCEL-branded, and it might not specify whether it’s modal or lyocell. And to get a TENCEL label, the garment only has to have 30% TENCEL.
Lyocell is made in a closed-loop system that doesn’t create harmful byproducts, using the bio-based chemical amine oxide (NMMO) instead of the multiple harsh chemicals employed in making viscose. The cellulose chemical structure is not changed in processing. A reported 99% of the NMMO is recovered and reused. The process is much faster than other viscose production, taking only about two and a half hours total, meaning a big savings in energy usage.
Like modal, lyocell is soft, breathable, light, stretchy, and absorbent, but it is also more durable and holds its shape better, even when wet. It’s stronger, since it is usually made from eucalyptus trees, which have stronger fibers than do the beech trees used for modal — although Lyocell is sometimes made of beech, bamboo, birch, or oak. It can be prone to wrinkles and may pill after numerous washes.
Lyocell is not petroleum-based, and it does not shed microplastics. It is biodegradable.
Plant Fibers
Cottons
Cotton is the most popular fabric on the planet, by far. It is breathable, soft, and highly absorbent, so it’s often recommended for people with sensitive skin. There are some certifications you can look for to either ensure the finished garment is harmless (OEKO-TEX), or to ensure that the supply chain met certain standards of sustainability (GOTS), increasing your odds of getting a body-friendly piece of clothing.
The short fibers of regular cotton — 90% of cotton is a variety called “Upland” — expand and contract, which can cause irritation to sensitive skin. The fibers of long-staple cottons, such as Pima and Egyptian, are longer, and are felt on the skin as super-soft. Since the fibers are longer, fewer connections are needed between them, which makes for a smoother, extra-strong fabric.
Ninety percent of the world’s cotton is the short-staple variety, Gossypium hirsutum, with fibers less than 1 1/8″ long. The fibers of long-staple cotton, Gossypium barbadense, are between 1 1/8″ and 1 1/4″ long. Extra-long staple cotton is between 1 3/8″and 2″ long. True Egyptian cotton fibers are over 1.75 inches in length, which makes them luxuriously smooth and soft.
Undyed cotton is skin-friendly and also beautiful. Most cotton grows yellow-white, which is then bleached — but cottons also come in pink, green, brown, and natural white. Unbleached cotton contains lignins that act as UV absorbers.
Cotton is biodegradable and, to some extent, recyclable. It becomes less strong when it is recycled, and contains traces of thread, spandex, and other components of the “100% cotton” clothing.
Conventionally Grown Cotton
Cotton that is not grown using organic agricultural practices is called conventionally grown. Most of this is short-staple cotton, but the longer-fiber varieties may also be conventionally grown.
Unless it’s grown organically, cotton is ecologically destructive to grow, requiring vast amounts of irrigation water and vast amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides — and the crop is often GMO. Then, a huge amount of pollution of air and water is caused by turning the fibers into cloth, dyeing it, printing it, and finishing it.
And those heavy chemicals, the harsh solvents, and the carcinogenic Azo dyes that are used in those processes remain embedded in most cotton clothes — maybe even in those that are grown organically, depending on what happened after the cotton got picked.
Some cotton growers, especially of the premium varieties, use sustainable practices without being certified organic.
Organic Cotton
Since growing cotton organically is much healthier for the Earth than growing regular cotton — no pesticides, herbicides, or GMO elements, and much less wasteful use of water — clothing made of organic cotton has a great head start towards being healthy for you.
Only an estimated 1% of cotton is organically grown — and you can’t actually count on your organic cotton being organic. For instance, reportedly, more than half of the cotton from India that is certified as organic really is not.
The next steps after the cotton is grown — processing of cotton fibers into textiles or garments — are typically less harsh and dangerous than with conventional cotton. Many organic clothing producers use less damaging chemicals than those used to process ordinary cotton, such as using azo-free dyes. But, again, you can’t count on it. Some certification programs, such as OEKO-TEX and GOTS, try to ensure the sustainability and/or safety of textiles and garments; see the (upcoming) Part 2 of this article.
Pima Cottons
Pima cotton can be conventional or organic; it is distinguished by the length of its fibers, which make it super-soft, smooth, strong, breathable, absorbent, and resistant to odor, pilling, and wrinkling. Reportedly, t-shirts and sheets made of Pima cotton last years longer than ordinary cotton.
Pima cotton was historically grown in Peru as long as 8000 years ago, and was re-invigorated when the U.S. Department of Agriculture worked with Peruvians, Pima Indians from Arizona, and others in the 1930s to develop a U.S. strain of long-staple cotton.
Modern-day Pima cotton comes mostly from the U.S., Peru, and Australia. It’s grown other places, too, such as Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, India, and China, but the soil and climate conditions of the main producers tend to make the best cotton fibers and thus the most luxurious cotton.
Because Pima cotton is used by luxury brands for sheets and clothing, many companies use the name, even though the item might be another variety of extra-long-staple cotton, or have only 20% Pima cotton, or be entirely conventional short-staple cotton, etc.
Supima (“superior Pima”) cotton is a trademarked name that certifies the cotton is authentic Pima, and that it has been grown in the U.S. using certain somewhat sustainable practices. But only about 1% of Supima cotton is organic.
Supima and Pima cotton grown in Peru or the U.S. are likely to be of about the same quality. Peruvian Pima cotton tends to be hand-harvested, which means production starts with the advantage of fibers that have been less damaged during harvest.
Pima is sometimes called “American Egyptian cotton.”
Egyptian Cotton
Extra-long-staple Egyptian cotton is very similar to Pima cotton — they are the same species, and both can be made into fabric that is super-soft, smooth, strong, breathable, absorbent and resistant to odor, pilling, and wrinkling. It has been grown along the Nile since 3000 BCE, where the hot, dry climate reportedly makes the cotton extra-strong and extra-soft, even compared to Pima.
Technically, any cotton grown in Egypt, even short-staple common cotton, can be called “Egyptian cotton,” and a huge percentage of what is sold as “Egyptian cotton” is not extra-long-staple cotton. It is common for sellers to say their product is Egyptian cotton if it contains a blend of Egyptian cotton and ordinary cotton, or any cotton grown in Egypt, whether extra-long-fiber or not.
Short-staple cotton products use thread count to show quality, but they twist multiple threads together because they are so thin, whereas with long-staple cotton the material is strong and soft without the need to use so many threads.
Coming Up: Part 2: Wools, Hemp, Linen, Silks
