Northwood News ♦ October 2005

‘Better Living Through Chemistry’?

The Toxic Effects of the Common Fabric Softener

By Peggy Li

Are you old enough to remember “Better Things for Better Living ... through Chemistry,” the 1960s advertising slogan of Dupont Company?  Later, those protesting the increasing chemical contamination of our environment shortened the catchphrase to the tongue-in-cheek “Better Living through Chemistry.”

That was then.  And this is now — we have generously and obediently supported the chemicalization of products we use in our homes, our yards, and in and on our bodies.  Dupont Company and others like it have been staggeringly successful.  Unfortunately, the unavoidable price we are paying is degradation of our health, our children’s health, and the health of future offspring.

The focus of this article is one type of product — fabric softeners — and how they contribute to the problem of air pollution and the dramatically increasing rates of asthma in children and adults.  The degradation of our air from fabric perfuming is far-reaching and avoidable, since there are safe alternatives for softening clothes (if indeed they really need softening).

Fabric softeners, particularly in the form of dryer sheets, affect us throughout our neighborhoods as we walk, play, garden, ride our bikes, or simply sit in our back yards.  Exhausts from clothes dryers can be smelled and inhaled for hundreds of feet in all directions.

Luke Curtis of the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago stated:  “Over 4,000 chemicals are used in artificial fragrance products, yet the vast majority of products have never been tested for human toxicity.  Several studies have found that low to moderate exposures of artificial fragrances can significantly worsen asthma in a large percentage of asthmatics.”

The following chemicals contained in fabric softeners and dryer sheets are inhaled into your lungs — and absorbed into your blood stream via your lungs and your skin:

1. Apha-Terpineol:  damages the central nervous system (CNS), irritates lungs, and can cause fatal edema.  Please note that CNS disorders include attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, sudden infant death syndrome, and seizures.

2. Benzyl Acetate:  linked to pancreatic cancer, irritates the eyes and respiratory system, toxic to the entire body when absorbed through the skin.

3. Benzyl Alcohol:  similar to #1 above, plus causes “headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, ... and death in severe cases due to respiratory failure.”

4. Camphor:  on Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Hazardous Waste list.  CNS stimulant, “readily absorbed through body tissues” ... causes “irritation of eyes, nose, and throat, ... dizziness, confusion, nausea, twitching muscles, and convulsions.”  “Avoid inhalation of vapors.”

5. Chloroform:  Neurotoxic (toxic to nerves and brain cells), carcinogenic, also on EPA’s Hazardous Waste list.  “Avoid contact with eyes, skin, clothing.  Do not breathe vapors.”  Produces symptoms similar to #4.  “Inhalation can be fatal.”  “Chronic effects of overexposure may include kidney and/or liver damage.  “Conditions to avoid:  Heat....”

6. Ethyl Acetate:  Narcotic.  On EPA’s Hazardous Waste list.  “...Irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract,” “...may cause headache and narcosis (stupor),” “...may cause anemia with leukocytosis and damage to liver and kidneys.”  “Wash thoroughly after handling.”

7. Limonene:  Carcinogenic. “Prevent its contact with skin or eyes because it is an irritant and sensitizer.”  “Always wash thoroughly after using this material and before eating, drinking ...applying cosmetics.  Do not inhale limonene vapor.”

8. Linalool:  Narcotic.  Causes CNS disorders and severe respiratory problems.  Attracts bees.  Lowers muscle and heart function.

9. Pentane:  “Danger:  Harmful if inhaled.  Avoid breathing vapor.”  “Inhalation of vapors may cause headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, irritation of respiratory tract and loss of consciousness.  Repeated inhalation of vapors may cause CNS depression.  Contact can cause eye irritation.  Prolonged exposure may cause dermatitis (skin rash).”

This information was compiled by the late Julia Kendall.  For the complete list, go to www.herc.org or google the topic for more information.

If someone wearing treated clothing visits your home and sits on your sofa, the “smell-good” chemicals are potent enough to penetrate the sofa’s fabric and give off fumes for many days.  If you stand near someone (you need not be close enough to touch the person) whose clothes are highly impregnated with the toxic softeners, your own clothes (and skin and lungs) will absorb the odors.  Once this writer had to wash her clothing several times to get rid of the fragrant chemicals absorbed in just that way.

Because affected clothing will be washed again — and probably reimpregnated — toxins will also be released into the water and have to be dealt with by our water treatment plants, rivers, and Chesapeake Bay, as well as all the creatures that live in these waters.

The wearer of treated clothing lives in a toxic haze (the chemicals are continually off-gassing) while subjecting the same to all who are near, including office mates, fellow subway riders, the babies or children you hold, schoolmates, persons in the grocery check-out line, etc.  The house that contains a box of dryer sheets will contaminate the air on all floors of the house, since release and emanation of the chemicals is passive and does not require heat or fluffing.

According to a report at www.life.ca, a Québec coroner is investigating the burning death of a women whose terrycloth robe, washed regularly with liquid fabric softener, caught fire.  Consumer Reports magazine (August 2000) found that softener-treated terrycloth, cotton, and velvet fabrics are seven times more quick to catch fire as those items not treated.  “Liquid softeners sold in Canada do carry warnings advising users not to use the products on fire-resistant clothing because they have been shown to reduce the effectiveness of fire-resistant materials.”  Lastly, they report:  “Liquid fabric softeners often contain formaldehyde.”

According to the National Fire Protection Association (www.nfpa.org), “There were 14,300 clothes dryer fires in U.S. homes in 1998, resulting in 19 deaths, 312 injuries, and 67.7 million in direct property damage, ...clothing ...was the most common source of ignition.” It has been reported that many of these fires begin in the dryer vent, which becomes coated with the chemicals from chemical softeners.  (See the NFPA website for safety tips.)

If you avoid using such products, you will be more sensitive to artificially created scents.  You will have noticed when walking at your local park to enjoy the fresh air, your joy is periodically interrupted by the fragrant chemical vapor trails of people passing by.  If you use such products, you will probably not be aware of the smells, because the air around you is continually contaminated and you have become desensitized.  Please be aware that individuals have different levels of sensory awareness.  If you are not bothered by a particular pollutant, that does not mean it does not exist!  Canaries were once used to test the safety of the air in coal mine shafts because humans simply are not able to detect air polluted enough to kill them!

Chemical fragrances are found in a plethora of consumer products.  Household air fresheners, personal fragrances, and many other products should all raise the same concerns.  The Environmental Health Network commissioned an independent laboratory to test Calvin Klein’s “Eternity.”  They found over 800 compounds.  Of chief concern was diethyl phthalate (DEP), considered a hormone disrupter that can accumulate in human fat tissue, leading to reproductive problems.  DEP comprised 10 percent of the Eternity formula. (See ehnca.org/www/FDApetition/analysis.htm.)

If you believe that your clothes and linens really do need softening and elimination of static electricity, you may find safer alternatives at local health food stores and via these websites:  www.nontoxic.com, www.sixwise.com, and www.lifekind.com.  (The author has no association with these companies and has never used their laundry products.)  Clothing and linens made of natural fibers really don’t require softening if they are thrown into a dryer.  Synthetic clothing creates static electricity, a “problem” that fabric softeners address.  Synthetic clothing, however, has its own health issues, including the alteration of the normal electrical charge of human skin — but that is a different topic.

Isn’t it wonderful that something so simple — changing how you soften your clothes — can make such an important difference in the quality of the air you are breathing day and night?

[This article was truncated in the printed newsletter.  Some URL links also have been updated.]   ■