Alden Wicker

“Her oldest son was two or three years old when his eczema got really bad. “Since I do work in the health-care field, I started doing research in my free time. And I noticed that eczema is increasing. It led me down this path to think about what else is increasing in our modern-day world.” Her conclusion? Chemicals. She switched her family to fragrance-free soaps and nontoxic cleaning products like baking soda and vinegar, and cut dairy out of their diet, concerned about what cows are being fed. After baths, they would do something called “soak and smear,” where they would cover their son head to toe in creams and Vaseline. “Everything we tried did not help,” she said. The steroid cream he was prescribed irritated his skin more. Open wounds developed on his hands and behind his knees, and they got infected. “It was so hard to look at as a parent,” she said. Then, she started thinking about his clothing. “He’s a really sweet, nice, low-key kid. And every morning getting dressed was a nightmare, just screaming tantrums.” Like any parent on a budget, Karly had been buying cheap clothing from mass-market brands, including polyester athletic clothes. “I’m going to sound like a bad parent. But just anything I could find that was gonna be wallet friendly,” she told me. As her son got older, he finally had the words to describe what was bothering him. First it was the tags, and the seams. Then, she finally realized, it was the clothing. All of it.”
― Alden Wicker, To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick--and How We Can Fight Back