BPA, PFAS and "Forever Chemicals" in Clothes — and Why a Cashmere Shawl Isn't a Sports Bra

Over the last few years a genuine set of findings about chemicals in clothing has been flattened into a much simpler story: synthetic clothes are poisoning you, natural ones are safe.

The findings are real. The flattening is not accurate, and it obscures the thing that would actually help you — which is that garment category matters far more than the word "synthetic".

We make cashmere knitwear, so we benefit from the natural-fibre story. That is a reason to check what follows rather than to accept it.

Where the BPA headlines came from

Bisphenol A is a well-studied compound that mimics oestrogen and can interfere with normal endocrine function. Most research on it concerns ingestion — food packaging, can linings, water bottles.

The clothing angle came from the Center for Environmental Health, a US advocacy organisation, which tested activewear across 2022 and 2023 and issued legal notices to a series of brands. Their reported finding was that some garments could expose wearers to many multiples of California's permitted daily dermal limit for BPA.

Three things about this deserve to be stated clearly, because they usually aren't.

The pattern was fabric-specific. The elevated readings were found in polyester-based garments containing spandex — leggings, sports bras, athletic shirts. That consistency is the most informative part of the finding.

"22 times" and "40 times" are measured against a regulatory threshold, not a harm threshold. The benchmark is California's Proposition 65 dermal maximum allowable dose of three micrograms per day. Proposition 65 limits are deliberately conservative — set with wide safety margins as right-to-know triggers, not as points at which harm has been demonstrated. Exceeding one is a reason to look closer. It is not evidence that anyone was harmed.

This was advocacy testing, not peer-reviewed research. It was conducted to support legal notices under a state right-to-know statute. That does not make it wrong. It does mean it has not been through the scrutiny that a published study would face, and it should be described accurately.

BPA is also cleared from the body within days, which is why chronic exposure across multiple sources is the relevant framing rather than any single garment.

What the peer-reviewed work adds

There is proper research on bisphenols migrating from textiles, and it is more nuanced than either side of the argument tends to report.

A 2024 study in Environmental Science and Pollution Research tested 57 textiles for bisphenols and modelled dermal exposure. Its conclusion had two halves: exposure from dry fabric stayed below the European Food Safety Authority's tolerable daily intake, while sweat-wet fabric could exceed it under some scenarios.

That is genuine support for the mechanism — moisture, heat and skin occlusion increase transfer. It also puts a boundary on it. The claims circulating online about absorption increasing by factors in the thousands do not come from primary research; they come from secondary write-ups citing each other.

The useful takeaway is a set of variables: moisture, tightness, surface area, duration. Those, not fibre category alone, are what determine transfer.

The PFAS numbers — read this part carefully

This is where reporting most often goes wrong, and where you can check whether a source knows what it is talking about.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a large family of highly persistent compounds used to make textiles repel water, oil and stains. "Forever chemicals" describes their environmental persistence.

The widely quoted apparel testing — a 2022 investigation reporting fluorine in leggings ranging from 10 to 284 parts per million, in 8 of 32 pairs tested — measured total organic fluorine.

Total organic fluorine is a proxy indicator for PFAS. It is not a measurement of PFAS. It detects the presence of organically bound fluorine, which is suggestive of PFAS but can arise from other fluorinated substances. Identifying which specific PFAS compounds are present, if any, requires targeted analysis that this testing did not perform.

So when you see "284 ppm of PFAS found in leggings", that is a misstatement of the finding. The accurate version is: organic fluorine at up to 284 ppm, an indicator warranting follow-up, in a minority of the items tested.

This matters beyond pedantry. If you cannot tell the difference between an indicator and a measurement, you cannot evaluate any of the claims being made at you.

Why garment category is the thing to focus on

Here is the practical logic that most coverage skips.

PFAS in textiles is a finish applied for a function. Water repellency. Stain resistance. Oil resistance. Manufacturers apply it because a product is sold on that performance — outdoor shells, technical outerwear, stain-resistant upholstery, some workwear.

A wool jumper is not sold on water repellency. A cashmere shawl is not sold on stain resistance. There is no functional reason to apply a fluorinated finish to either, and no economic reason to pay for one.

The BPA findings clustered in polyester-spandex. Again, a specific fabric construction, in a specific product category.

Exposure conditions differ enormously by garment. Contact area, pressure, duration and moisture drive dermal transfer. A compression legging worn during exercise for two hours is close to the maximum of all four. A shawl worn loosely over a shirt is close to the minimum.

So the question worth asking is not "is this natural or synthetic?" It is: is this tight, worn against bare skin, worn while sweating, and does it carry a performance finish?

That reframing does more practical work than any fibre hierarchy. It is also why we are careful, in our piece on what "natural fibre" does and doesn't guarantee, not to claim a natural fibre is automatically clean.

What regulators are actually doing

Useful context, because it tells you where the substantiated concern sits.

On PFAS in textiles: California restricts intentionally added PFAS, with its total organic fluorine threshold tightening from 100 ppm to 50 ppm at the start of 2027. New York has its own restriction, with severe-wet-condition outdoor apparel treated separately. Colorado is phasing measures in. Maine's textile sales restriction took effect at the beginning of 2026. France and Denmark have introduced national restrictions. EU REACH restricts a specific PFAS compound in textiles from October 2026.

Note what this legislation consistently targets: outdoor apparel and performance finishes. That is where regulators have identified the exposure.

Enforcement on marketing claims is tightening in parallel. In April 2026 the Texas Attorney General issued a civil investigative demand to a major activewear company examining whether its wellness marketing was consistent with the chemical content of its apparel. In the EU, the Empowering Consumers directive becomes enforceable in September 2026, requiring sustainability claims to be substantiated with accessible evidence and banning self-created sustainability labels.

The regulatory direction is not "natural good, synthetic bad". It is "substantiate what you say, and stop applying persistent chemicals where they aren't needed".

What we'd actually suggest

Don't discard clothing you own. Nothing in the evidence supports that, and disposal has its own cost.

Prioritise high-contact items when replacing. Base layers, activewear, underwear, sleepwear, socks. These meet the tight-plus-sweaty-plus-prolonged criteria. Outerwear and loose layers do not.

Ask what a finish is doing. If a garment is sold as water-repellent or stain-resistant, ask what achieves that. Many manufacturers have moved to non-fluorinated alternatives and will say so.

Look for testing, not adjectives. A certification like OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 tests finished textiles against defined limits with a verifiable certificate number. "Non-toxic" and "chemical-free" are unregulated terms with no standard behind them — and "chemical-free" is not a coherent statement about any material.

Wash new clothes before wearing. Removes surface residues and processing aids.

Discount anyone selling you certainty. Including us. The honest position is that some of this is well established, some is preliminary, and the gap between the two is where most of the marketing lives.

Common questions

Does cashmere contain BPA?
The activewear testing that produced the BPA findings identified elevated readings in polyester-based garments containing spandex, not in animal fibres. No fibre is automatically exempt from every substance, which is why finished-product testing exists — but the documented pattern was specific to that fabric construction.

Do natural fibres contain PFAS?
PFAS is applied as a functional finish for water, oil and stain repellency. A garment not sold on those properties has no reason to carry one. Where natural-fibre products do carry PFAS, it is typically outdoor or performance items treated for repellency — not ordinary knitwear.

Is the "284 ppm" figure accurate?
The number is accurate; the label usually attached to it is not. It refers to total organic fluorine, a proxy indicator for PFAS, in the highest of 32 leggings tested. It is not a measurement of PFAS concentration, and identifying specific PFAS compounds would require different analysis.

Should I stop wearing polyester?
Nothing in the evidence supports a blanket rule. The reasonable adjustment is being more selective about tight synthetic garments worn against skin during exercise — the specific conditions where the documented findings and the transfer mechanism converge.

Are "forever chemicals" in all clothing?
No. They are applied deliberately for repellency and are concentrated in outdoor, performance and stain-resistant categories, which is exactly where regulation has focused.

This article summarises published research, advocacy testing and public regulatory documents, and distinguishes between them where it matters. It is general information, not medical advice, and does not diagnose or treat any condition.

Keep exploring

A cashmere shawl sits at the opposite end of that spectrum from performance synthetics — see the cashmere shawl collection.