I have always felt that flame retardant fabrics for children’s pajamas contain dangerous chemicals. Now I am discovering that they are finding these chemicals in the blood of children and in landfills, and many other places.
Fabric in general contains formaldehyde (also in flame retardant fabrics). How can we remove it from fabric? How can we tell fabic companies that we want toxin free fabrics?
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>> ... How can we tell fabic
>> ... How can we tell fabic companies ... << My guess would be USPS mail if your in the US.
It's been years since I browsed children's fabrics. To my memory most end bolts I read specified the fabric was flammable. RTW on the other hand was more likely to have a hang tag that read otherwise.
You might consider opening the following URL -
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/remove-new-smell-from-clothes-2.html
nepa
toxins in fabrics
Thank you for the site. I will pretreat all my fabrics, including cottons. I have also learned that another dangerous chemical is teflon, used to resist stains. The industry is now in the process of not using teflon in cookware, so have decided to put it in fabrics??? I have learned so far that fabrics that are wrinkle resistant, flame resistant, state there is microban (antibacterial) all have chemicals in them that are dangerous, especially to small children.
Why do kids pjs have to be 'flame resistant" anyway? Cotton does not burn well in any case; I know this because i took a few 'firedancing" lessons, and we were warned to wear only COTTON clothing to dance in because it does not catch fire easily. It merely SMOLDERS briefly. So, just make your kids PJ out of COTTON.
This fear of flammable fabrics has an old, old history: There are many stories in both fiction and the news of the day, especially between roughly 1770 and the early 1900s, about houses catching on fire during the night in a period of time when the kitchen was both wood-fired and part of the house (though prudent people built a kitchen separate from the house). Women and children fleeing the fire were said to be caught by the flames because of their billowing cotton gowns. We're talking billowing here, folks--acres of fabric. In addition, there was (and maybe still is) a kind of romantic fascination with dramatic death in these tales.
Even though I heard such stories from my grandparents, with whom I lived as a child, I have always rejected those nonsensical fire-resistant fabrics. As Rabia says, cotton does not catch fire easily, whereas those blankety-blank synthetics will melt and smolder on your skin. Aaaack! My son was clothed in pure cotton when he was a baby. We kept him and his crib away from flame.
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