What You Wear Every Day Might Be Affecting You

When people start thinking about reducing chemical exposure, they almost always begin with food or personal care products. Clothes almost never come up, even though you wear them all day, pressed directly against your skin. If you wear clothes for 12 hours a day, that is half your waking life spent in contact with whatever those clothes are made of and treated with.

Modern clothing production involves a lot of chemistry. It starts with the fiber itself. Cotton is one of the most pesticide-intensive crops in conventional agriculture, requiring large amounts of insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. While much of the pesticide is removed during processing, residues can remain in the finished fabric. Synthetic fibers like polyester and nylon are made from petroleum-derived compounds and require their own set of processing chemicals.

After the fiber stage, fabrics go through dyeing, which uses synthetic dyes that often require heavy metals as mordants to bond the color to the fiber. Azo dyes, one of the most commonly used classes, can break down to release aromatic amines, some of which are known carcinogens. The European Union has banned several azo dyes from clothing that comes in prolonged contact with skin. US regulations on textile dyes are far less stringent.

Finishes Are the Biggest Problem

Wrinkle-resistant and "easy-care" finishes often use formaldehyde-based resins to cross-link the cotton fibers and prevent wrinkling. Studies have confirmed that formaldehyde residues persist in fabric through multiple washings. Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen and one of the most common causes of contact dermatitis in clothing.

Flame retardants, water-resistant coatings (often PFAS-based), antibacterial treatments, softening agents, optical brighteners, and sizing agents are all routinely applied to clothing before it reaches a store. Most of this is invisible to the consumer. Washing new clothing before wearing it helps remove some surface residues, but not all finishes wash out.

Where to Start

What to prioritize first

• Swap clothes that sit closest to your skin for the longest time: underwear, pajamas, t-shirts, socks
• Look for GOTS certified or OEKO-TEX 100 certified products
• Wash new clothes before wearing them
• Avoid clothing labeled "wrinkle-free," "easy-care," or "stain-resistant" without certification

Certifications that actually mean something

• GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard): covers organic fiber, processing chemicals, and social criteria
• OEKO-TEX Standard 100: tests the finished product for harmful substances, does not require organic fiber

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