Question from Tjay Math
My spouse is extremely ill & also suffers from severe MCS. We recently purchased some flannel bed sheets from a reputable company. The product was Oeko-Tex® certified but the dye odor was extreme, even after frequent washings. We were led to believe that Oeko-Tex® certified meant chemically free. Should we be looking for different certification for MCS safe product?
Debra’s Answer
First, Oeko-Tex® does not certify anything to be “MCS-safe.” And further, nobody could do that because each person with MCS has their own sensitivities, even to products that are nontoxic. For example, organic cotton is about as chemical-free a material as you can get, but some people with MCS do not tolerate it because of the natural oils that remain in organic cotton that are not processed out.
Certification organizations set a standard and then test products and certify that they meet that standard. In most cases, they certify to LOW emissions, not NO emissions.
My recommendation for more than thirty years has been for people with MCS to choose products of the lowest toxicity they can find. There are products that exist with NO fragrance, NO formaldehyde, etc. I do my best to list them at debraslist.com and in this Q&A blog.
Evaluate products for yourself. Don’t rely on certifications.
There is a twisted sense of ‘ok’ with a lot of labeling – I’ve seen these fabrics touted, but then ‘scotchguarded’ which completely defies logic.
Flannel – white – untreated – no wrinkle guard, no stain guards.
If you stick with cotton sheets without dyes (white, beige, etc) you should do okay provided you wash them several times after purchase. We would all like some color and variation in our lives but it just is not always possible.