Love Your Iron: Wrinkle-Free Clothing Contains Formaldehyde
Well, well, would you look at this—if it’s not our old friend formaldehyde making news once more! A New York Times article about the presence of formaldehyde, or more accurately formaldehyde releasers, in the finish on wrinkle-free clothing held steady on the most-emailed list all weekend long. But read at your own risk…
The truth is that Siobhan and I have been avoiding the subject of chemicals in clothing like the plague. Why? Because, similar to certain women with their cosmetics, we just don’t want to think about it. We’ve even joked with our lit agent that the next book we write could be called No More Dirty Laundry… except that neither of us is ready to throw out all of our clothes. As the article points out:
The United States does not regulate formaldehyde levels in clothing, most of which is now made overseas. Nor does any government agency require manufacturers to disclose the use of the chemical on labels. So sensitive consumers may have a hard time avoiding it (though washing the clothes before wearing them helps).
And we have a sneaking suspicion that formaldehyde is not the only chemical being used in clothing manufacturing that’s either: 1) dangerous to the people making the clothes, or 2) something most of us don’t want on our skin all day. Ugh. As a first step though, we’re definitely going to avoid any “wrinkle-free” fabrics. Those always seemed weird to us anyways.
How about you? Have you given any thought to the chemicals in your clothes?
i buy mostly 2nd hand… & no I havent put as much thought into it as cosmetics, food… but i was told by a co-worker not that long ago that the “new clothes smell” is caused by formaldehyde…which blew me away, then made sense… then made me sick. … hrmm… if only i could sew… i would love to wear nothing but pure cotton, hemp and other natural fiber articles … it’s just so hard… frustration and a feeling of hopelessness!! argh!
I’ve had my run in with fabric and formaldehyde burns. I purchased Spring Industry sheets, bought at Bed Bath and Beyond, back when I was 25. I threw the sheets on my bed (about as naive to this stuff as I could be) without washing them. That first night I put them on my boyfriend at the time slept on them as well. A day after both of us, without mentioning until a couple weeks later noticed that we had rashes on strategic spots on our bodies that were unreal itchy and red blistery. I always slept to the side of him, and low and behold, my rashes started showing up on that elbow that I layed on. My boyfriend, the back of his arms, as he slept on his back. Our skin crawled & were rashed- they felt like something under our skin. I can’t even mention the excrutiating pain my scalp felt and the blistered aftermath when I would have my hair dresser bleach my roots. I would wear pajamas to bed to wake up and notice bruising on my thighs from scratching all night while I slept. SIX months later, with the refunded money from Spring industries and the offer to pay for any medical bills (as well as the inquiry if I needed their lawyer’s information, which completely freaked me out because I simply just wanted to know why I was itching), after I contacted them to ask what in gods name could possibly be put on the sheets that may cause an allergy, they said the resins sprayed on the sheets to preserve the fabric durability and color, was basically formaldehyde. Steriods – cortizon – allergy tablets, for six months, everyday, all day, applied was all i could do. Through the six months, it traveled all over my body. My boyfriend thought we had scabies, as did his doctor. So we took the meds to get rid of scabies (although my doctor told me it had to be an allergy the way it acted in the body), which caused blood blisters in the joints and creases (hello…panty line). To this day, I am 35 now, I still have little pores that will rise up and become translucent on my hands and tops of my feet randomly. They are not itchy, but I can only imagine that I have either come across something with formaldehyde in it or its still releasing in my body. Terrible, terrible stuff. Moral of the story, AT THE VERY LEAST, wash your fabrics before wearing or coming in contact with your body.
I only JUST started having clothing issues on the brain this past weekend! While shopping for sweatshirts to run in I came across some made by Hanes with EcoSmart fabric. According to the label the fabric is cotton and 5% polyester made from recycled plastic bottles. “Recycled plastic bottles? Wow, this is pretty awesome!” It was only until I got home with a few of them in my bag that I realized.. “Don’t a lot of plastic bottles have BPA in them? And other toxic things? WHAT HAVE I DONE?!”
@Samala: I wouldn’t be too concerned about the recycled plastic bottles. It most likely is made from old pop bottles, which do not contain BPA. It would be virtually impossible to manufacture clothing from recycled polycarbonate, because 1) they are in short supply compared to pop drink bottles, and 2) they are made to be re-used, and are therefore recycled at a much lower rate than pop bottles.
Just picked up the book “Clean” today. It talks about a formalehyde resin used to make clothing, sheets, etc. wrinkle free – creepy. And the author mentions that synthetic materials like nylon, acrylic, and polyester are all petroleum based. (seems pretty obvious to me now but did not connect the dots) Makes sense though – if we are concerned about absorbing toxic chemicals from cosmetics through our skin why wouldn’t we look at whats in our clothes? And towels, sheets, what we use to clean our clothes, make them smell nice and on and on and on. Huge eye opener. Another one. They seem to just keep on comin.
Aack. Just bought my husband some Brooks Brothers iron-free dress shirts because I’m tired of ironing (and, yes, he can do his own shirts, but he sucks at ironing and looks like he slept in his clothes). I’ve been so vigilent about clean cosmetics, laundry detergents, household cleaners, etc. and now I’ve dropped the ball completely on clothing.
Gosh, it’s always something right? At least according to the article a couple of good washes really helps.
I would like to know more about the book “CLEAN” mentioned by Kat. Who’s the author? I looked on Amazon and found a couple titles with “clean” in them, but wasn’t sure which one you have read. If you check back to this post can you inform??? Or anyone else who may have read this book. Just curious. Can’t seem to read enough GREEN books and articles lately.
Also, I would greatly welcome “No More Dirty Laundry”! What a great sequel to an already great first book!
Jill:
“Clean” by Alejandro Junger – it’s a cleansing thing. It’s in the first couple of chapters when he is talking about global toxicity. I was surprised he talks about this stuff – in a good way!
OK, I can officially stop envying my husband his wrinkle-free dress shirts now :P
My son developed a terrible hives-like,allergic reaction after wearing a Brooks Brothers wrinkle-free shirt. His entire body and face swelled and he was terrified. We used Benadryl to correct it but it took an hour. He’d had a similar reaction to a life vest.