Question from Stacey
Hi Debra,
I am trying to find a less toxic carseat/booster seat for my children. I did check Healthy Child but the list is outdated and I question the testing and results since the same brand can have the safest and worst car seat listed…
I did find some seats made by Clek Olli that are made of “Greenguard Crypton Super Fabrics” which “provide permanent protection against stains, moisture and odor-causing bacteria and are free of brominated and chlorinated flame retardants.” Of course I like that it is supposedly free of these flame retardants, but I wonder about the safety of other chemicals used to make it stain, odor, and microbial resistant. Have you heard of Crypton Superfabrics or have any recommendation about it’s safety? All car seats and boosters seem pretty toxic, so I feel it’s just a guessing game choosing a safer car seat, if that’s possible. Thanks so much, Debra, for all the great advice!
Debra’s Answer
It took me a while to find the information on this product, but I found it at www.hytex.com/pdf/Crypton.pdf.
This is considered a “green” product.
There are four requirements for creating
new collections:
01. Select fiber content that is either:
(a) 50-100% recycled
(b) 100% heavy-metal-free polyester
(c) 100% wool with heavy-metal-free dyes
(d) 100% polypropylene
We don’t know which fabric is on your carseat, but any one of these is better than most other carseats.
Read more at the link about how these fabrics must meet emissions standards.
It is GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified and GREENGUARD Children & Schools Certified. It’s also has the SCS Indoor Advantage Gold certification and the “Cradle to “Cradle” certification, which disallows a whole list of toxic chemicals.
What I can say is given the type of product you are considering, this choice is very probably a lot less toxic than most others on the market.
Here’s the thing for me. Would I sleep on this fabric? No. I just don’t go near synthetic fabrics of any kind, toxic or not toxic. Synthetics just make my skin creep. I’d use the wool version.
But absolutely it’s a better choice than most other carseats.
Thank you, Debra! Clek also offers their car seats/boosters in leather (although very expensive). I contacted the company and was told that the leather is a “natural” flame retardant, so the leather seats do not have the flame retardants or any chemical coating as do the Greenguard Crypton Superfabrics, so leather might be the best option. What do you think? Do leather seats in cars have any flame retardants, or is the leather a “natural” flame retardant?
Thanks again!
Leather has it’s own list of toxic chemicals in ordinary processing, so unless the leather is specially processed, it would contain toxic chemicals even if not flame retardants.
Still that might be the best option, even if not the perfect option. I have leather seats in my car, but they were already four years old when I bought them.
I wouldn’t say leather is a “natural flame retardant,” but I would say it is “inherently flame retardant” in that, like wool, it doesn’t burn, so it doesn’t need a flame retardant. It could function as a natural flame barrier, like wool, if one wanted to use it for that purpose.