Do You Know The Safety Grade Of Clothing?

Recently, according to a test report of Shanghai Quality Supervision Bureau, some of the products of the international fashion retail chain giant H&M were unqualified, and the value of a T-shirt exceeded the standard. The famous clothing brand was once again involved in the "quality door". Every one of us had to keep in touch with our clothes every day. Those seemingly clean and beautiful clothes were sometimes "invisible killers" threatening our health. Actually, clothing also has safety standards, and the state has corresponding censorship standards. Do you know?

Do you know the safety grade of clothing?

Do clothes also have safety grades?

Yes, although the safety grade of clothing does not seem to have food safety, it is "life related", but as the clothing of people's second skin, its composition is closely related to human health.

According to the classification of national basic safety technical specifications for textile products, clothing can be divided into three safety levels: A, B and C, that is, infant products should meet the technical requirements of class a products. Clothing directly exposed to the skin should meet the technical requirements of B products. Clothes that are not directly exposed to the skin should meet the technical requirements of C products.

All of this sounds a bit distant from the consumers, but it can be seen from the clothing label.

The basic safety technical specification for national textile products also clearly stipulates that all clothing and decorative textiles sold on the market should be categorization, and the labels should not be handwritten or modified.

In January this year, the relevant state departments also issued new standards, requiring clothing manufacturers to mark formaldehyde content and pH value. This is the two chemical substance that can be most harmful to human body in clothing ingredients.

Therefore, when buying clothes, consumers should pay special attention to the relevant labels on the labels.

Why do clothes contain dangerous ingredients?

It is understood that clothing pollution has two sources: first, clothing materials in the process of planting, in order to control pests and diseases, use pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, etc., these toxic and harmful substances remain on clothing, causing skin allergies, respiratory diseases or other toxic reactions; two, in the processing and manufacturing process, use oxidants, catalysts, flame retardants, whitening fluorescent agents and other chemical substances. These harmful substances are left on textiles, causing clothing to be contaminated again. The plastic shaping process of clothing will also use formaldehyde containing chemicals, and will also cause pollution to clothing.

How much do you know if the quality is not up to standard?

At present, according to the national mandatory technical standards, the indicators for testing clothing mainly include pH value, formaldehyde content, azo dye, color fastness, fiber content, plocation and so on.

In the process of garment manufacture, some chemicals are unavoidable. If the chemicals are not treated well, the content of these chemicals on textiles exceeds a certain standard, if they are directly exposed to the skin, they will do harm to people's health, and some of them will still have a long incubation period.

We may have access to:

PH value.

The pH value is closely related to the processing technology and quality control of fabrics.

The failure of pH value is mainly due to the use of a large number of acid and alkali substances in the dyeing and finishing process of fabric production enterprises, and no reasonable neutralization treatment process has been taken, resulting in excessive pH value of the products.

The normal pH of human skin should be between 5.5 and 7, which is slightly acidic. It can protect the body from infection by bacteria.

If the pH value of clothing is high or low, it will directly damage the balance mechanism of human skin and weaken the skin's ability to resist the invasion of germs, which may cause skin allergies, itching, redness and swelling, and even trigger irritant dermatitis and contact dermatitis.

Formaldehyde content.

When clothing is produced, it will add formaldehyde to auxiliaries in order to achieve the functions of crease prevention, shrinkproof, flame retardancy, or to maintain the durability of printing and dyeing or to improve the handle.

In particular, some garment manufacturers in order to save costs, in the production of ironing clothing, in order to make the fabric is not easy to wrinkle, the use of formaldehyde finishing agent.

When the residual formaldehyde is not treated and made into garments, it will do harm to the human body.

Formaldehyde will gradually release in the process of wearing, combined with human sweat or hydrolyze to produce free formaldehyde, which will produce strong stimulation on respiratory mucosa, eyes and skin, causing dizziness, airway inflammation and skin inflammation, which can cause hematological diseases and even cancer.

Azo dyes.

Azo dye is a common dye in clothing dyeing process. It can decompose carcinogenic substances in some special conditions. Once overloaded, such clothing can be absorbed by the skin in long term contact with the human body, it will spread in the human body, cause lesions and even induce cancer, and the incubation period may be longer than 20 years.

Color fastness.

Color fastness refers to the degree of firmness of dyed garments.

Clothing with unqualified color fastness may stain stains on other clothing while washing clothes, and dyes can also be easily pferred from textiles to human skin, which is likely to cause harm to human health.

At the same time, when dyeing or washing, the dyes and finishing agents that fall off due to poor color fastness will be discharged into rivers with waste water, and will also have adverse effects on the ecological environment.

Authoritative tips

If the formaldehyde and pH value of clothing components are indeed exceeded, it is very difficult for consumers to make a correct judgement without passing the testing apparatus. In this regard, Yang Ping, deputy director of the China Textile Industry Association's testing center, pointed out the following solutions that are convenient for you to operate.

1. when consumers buy Textiles and clothing products, it is best to buy them in regular stores, where goods need to be submitted to the test report before they are allowed to go public, and the overall safety is guaranteed.

2. be sure to pay attention to labels when buying, including the tag and the permanent label that is stitched on the clothes. You need to have a look at it to see which level of safety is in line with A, B and C.

3. pay special attention to the special odors emitted from some textile products, such as mildew, gasoline and kerosene, fishy smell, especially those newly opened. This indicates that there are excessive chemical residues on the textiles.

4. generally speaking, everyone will clean the newly bought underwear. In fact, as long as new clothes (especially T-shirts, shirts and other direct contact with the skin), regardless of the price level, should first wash and wear, and then in the sun.

Assuming that pH exceeds the standard, cleaning will be very helpful.