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Unless new clothing/towels are washed alot my son and I feel ill, brain fog, skin rash etc using them. We react to the chemical smell or smooth feeling coating.
I dread washing new clothes repeatedly. Would a vinegar soak remove these manufacturing chemicals? I've hung items on the clothes line before washing...
My son has asthma and reacts to the dye and chemicals. Sometimes clothing won't give up the smell of cardboard it arrived in.
I'd appreciate any methods or short cuts to stripping clothes of these chemicals. I apologize if this is the wrong area to post or if consumer products is more appropriate? Thanks.
Last edited by Withinpines; 10-02-2020 at 02:02 AM..
Unless new clothing/towels are washed alot my son and I feel ill, brain fog, skin rash etc using them. We react to the chemical smell or smooth feeling coating.
I dread washing new clothes repeatedly. Would a vinegar soak remove these manufacturing chemicals? I've hung items on the clothes line before washing...
My son has asthma and reacts to the dye and chemicals. Sometimes clothing won't give up the smell of cardboard it arrived in.
I'd appreciate any methods or short cuts to stripping clothes of these chemicals. I apologize if this is the wrong area to post or if consumer products is more appropriate? Thanks.
This isn't specific enough to comment on. What might work best may depend on the specific chemical or the clothing brand. There are many possibilities. We don't know what brands you mean. Maybe you need to focus on buying organic clothing from companies that don't add chemicals to brighten colors, resist wrinkling, prolong folds or pleats, sizing, add a scent, and that use natural vegetal dyes. Avoid cheaper brands. Stick with brands you didn't have problems with. Smell the clothes in the store. If they have an odor, refuse to buy them. A vinegar pre-rinse shouldn't hurt most fabrics but it could fade some colors. Wash the clothes. If you still react to them TAKE THEM BACK and file a complaint with the manufacturer. If people don't take action for themselves nothing will change.
I'm not surprised that this happens to certain people. This doesn't happen to me, but I think overall everyone should wash clothing before using, ESPECIALLY towels & underwear. We don't know what the fabric came into contact w/ before we got them so it's good for sanitary purposes in general. Socks my be the only thing I don't really wash before wearing for the very 1st time.
Sure, as long as you know vinegar doesn't make any dyes bleed, then sure, use vinegar. It's cheaper than using detergent. Google terms such as, "all-natural way to wash clothing" & a lot will come up.
Now regarding when you say, "Unless new clothing/towels are washed alot my son and I feel ill, brain fog, skin rash etc using them", do you mean you always have to wash everything like 2-4 times or something before wearings? I've never had to do that. What kind of detergent do you use?
I've always used regular detergent like Tide or Arm & Hammer for towels, socks, underwear, but I use Woolite for clothing to prevent fading, shrinking, etc. & those have been good for me.
Thanks. Sorry for lack of specifics. New denim? That coating on towels that prevents them from absorbing water? Black and dark dyes that are supposedly toxic.
All new clothing is full of chemicals. Organic Hanna Andersson made our machine foam up BEFORE we added soap. It smelled like Febreeze and took more washing to remove harsh odors than non organic clothing.
I don't bother with organic anymore. Oshkosh, Carters arrived fragranced. That and a cardboard odor wouldn't wash out so I returned them. The febreezed Hannah Andersson stuff was returned too. Are retailers scenting clothing?
I hadn't returned clothing until then. Clothing is now being made inexpensively and not in the USA. It may be unregulated and therefore causing this sick feeling and rash we get from more recent purchases. Land's End told me their clothing is fumigated when it's imported in....
Last edited by Withinpines; 10-03-2020 at 12:26 AM..
I'm not surprised that this happens to certain people. This doesn't happen to me, but I think overall everyone should wash clothing before using, ESPECIALLY towels & underwear. We don't know what the fabric came into contact w/ before we got them so it's good for sanitary purposes in general. Socks my be the only thing I don't really wash before wearing for the very 1st time.
Sure, as long as you know vinegar doesn't make any dyes bleed, then sure, use vinegar. It's cheaper than using detergent. Google terms such as, "all-natural way to wash clothing" & a lot will come up.
Now regarding when you say, "Unless new clothing/towels are washed alot my son and I feel ill, brain fog, skin rash etc using them", do you mean you always have to wash everything like 2-4 times or something before wearings? I've never had to do that. What kind of detergent do you use?
I've always used regular detergent like Tide or Arm & Hammer for towels, socks, underwear, but I use Woolite for clothing to prevent fading, shrinking, etc. & those have been good for me.
Thanks, good info. Years ago my son's asthma doctor suggested we go all natural with products. It's really helped. We wash laundry with Dr Bronners Sal Suds because its mild and doesn't cause rashes like unscented All and Tide did.
When I go back to conventional detergent the rash comes back.
I can't comment on clothing, but about 10 years ago I bought a new clothes hamper at a name store that was upholstered, sort of like an ottoman with a lid. Was not a cheap store or cheap hamper.
Lasted about 2 days and I threw it out. it STANK, I mean really really stank of chemical odor. Disgusting.
Thanks, good info. Years ago my son's asthma doctor suggested we go all natural with products. It's really helped. We wash laundry with Dr Bronners Sal Suds because its mild and doesn't cause rashes like unscented All and Tide did.
When I go back to conventional detergent the rash comes back.
I see, thanks for replying & sorry I wasn't of more help. I know the frustration of trying to find solutions to something major.
Well, if that's the laundry cleanser that you've found that works, I guess keep it up!
Wash everything first before you use it. People used to say that adding milk to the washer helped but there are some instances when you can never get that smell out.
I made the mistake of using some sheets without washing them first. That was a long time ago. High end sheets, so beautiful that I couldn't resist, and next day I was all broken out in a rash. Once the sheets were washed they were fine.
I don't know if they still use formaldehyde, but that's one hazardous chemical that used to be implicated in clothing that caused problems.
About 15 years ago, I went to a fabric store that a lot of my quilting friends were talking about. The prices were amazing, and the place was like a vast warehouse. All of their stuff was interesting, but it was all really inferior goods I ended up not buying anything. But the woman I was with was just taken with the whole place and we had to go through all of it. After about 45 minutes I started getting lightheaded and itchy, and I told her that I was going to go out and wait in the car. By the time I got to the car my arms were just patchy red so obviously I was reacting to something. I think it was the sizing and the stuff they put in the fabric so they could ship it cheaply, as cheap as possible so you know bugs and stuff so they probably had to treat the stuff when they got it here. I never went back.
About five years after that, I came down with a huge case of contact dermatitis, eczema. The doctor gave me the steroid cream and I was using the steroid cream on my arms, my husband would spread it on my back, but it was going on and on and getting worse. My doctor said I would have to basically throw out everything and start adding thing back in to see what I was reacting to, which sounded like an incredibly difficult way to do this.
I started researching it and the thing that kept coming up was detergents. So I was almost out of my favorite wonderful I love Tide Pods... and have you noticed in their advertising they always seem to use two in a load, and not one like the box says? Anyhow…
I switched to Seventh Generation liquid, because that’s what Costco sells. And, from the reading that I did, they said it would take between 6 to 10 washings for the old detergent residue to wash completely out. So essentially my body would probably still be reacting if it was the detergent, for another 10 weeks. Well I have to be honest, it started reacting almost immediately and the reaction was — my skin calming the heck down. It was probably four weeks and I was almost clear except for the one bad really bad patch on my back. But I didn’t need to use the cream on it anymore, it wasn’t itchy, it was just healing.
So, and maybe this was the wrong thing to do, I decided to stick with Seventh Generation and I haven’t tested anything else. But I really like the pod type system. And Seventh Generation does have a packaging of that sort. Amusingly enough it’s not liquid, it’s powder. Which actually works better because if one of them accidentally explodes you don’t get a bunch of pods all glued together.
There is a slight scent, but it doesn’t stay in the clothing after it’s dried. It just smells clean. I do use Mrs. Meyers fabric softener which does leave a light scent. But I only do that on things that I know will static cling.
And in total honesty, I hate vinegar in the wash or in the rinse. That scent does not go away, and it’s not pleasant. I have also heard that because it’s acidic, constant use screws with the various gaskets and rings that are made out of rubber. I use vinegar in my washer is about every six months to a year when I wash all my bath towels in simple hot water and vinegar. To get rid of any sort of musty scent. I also rinse them with a lot of baking soda to neutralize that vinegar smell.
I started researching it and the thing that kept coming up was detergents. So I was almost out of my favorite wonderful I love Tide Pods... and have you noticed in their advertising they always seem to use two in a load, and not one like the box says? Anyhow…
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Interesting because someone gave me some of those Tide Pods during the time in the pandemic when the store shelves were bare. I had never even seen a Tide Pod before. They smell awful to me and the clothes smell awful too. I don't see how people can use them!
For years I've been using nothing but Woolite plus Borax or some Fels Naptha soap (grate it) with Borax for hot water wash. NO odor at all, clothes come out very clean, whites are very white.
Here's the old recipe--I got lazy and just use the Borax and I keep a knife on the laundry roof shelf and grate a little bit of soap each time or I use the cold water detergent if doing cold water wash. I've never used the washing soda but maybe if you have really dirty laundry it would be needed.
Conventional laundry detergent is loaded with chemicals like sulfates, fragrances, phenols and more. Many brands contain things like petroleum distillates, which are linked to cancer and lung disease. Fragrances in these detergents are made of a mix of harmful chemicals. NO WONDER some of us get bad reactions from laundry products!
Borax is an ingredient in Seventh Generation but I only have two people and a dog so I'll just stick with my cheap and lazy method.
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Solly says — Be nice!
