Exposure of women to trace elements through the skin by direct contact with underwear clothing

Overview

Nguyen and Saleh measured extractable inorganic elements in 120 women’s undergarment samples made from cotton, nylon, and polyester. The paper reports concentrations in mg/kg after 5% nitric-acid extraction, not total digestion of the entire textile. Brand names appear in the Methods sample list but are not attached to any contamination values here.

Key numbers

• Sample frame: 120 women’s underwear samples, consisting of 63 cotton, 44 nylon, and 13 polyester garments, manufactured in 14 countries and spanning colors including black, blue, brown, cream, green, grey, khaki, multi-color, navy blue, orange, pink, purple, red, yellow, and white.
• Aluminum: cotton garments ranged from 5 to 652 mg/kg; nylon garments ranged from 11 to 220 mg/kg; polyester garments were all less than 7 mg/kg.
• Iron: cotton garments ranged from 16 to 163 mg/kg; nylon garments ranged from 13 to 22 mg/kg; polyester garments ranged from 2 to 51 mg/kg.
• Zinc: one red cotton sample was reported at 300 mg/kg; nylon garments ranged from 4 to 8 mg/kg; polyester garments ranged from 2 to 65 mg/kg.
• Chromium: cotton garments ranged from 0 to 7 mg/kg; nylon garments reached 118 and 94 mg/kg in black and green colors; polyester garments ranged from 0 to 1 mg/kg. The paper states that 5 samples were above 100 mg/kg, 12 above 50 mg/kg, 21 above 25 mg/kg, 61 above 10 mg/kg, and 21 up to 10 mg/kg.
• Cobalt: cotton garments ranged from 0.01 to 0.19 mg/kg; nylon garments ranged from 0.0 to 28 mg/kg, with red, yellow, and black nylon values as high as 7, 15, and 28 mg/kg; polyester ranged from 0.0 to 0.03 mg/kg.
• Manganese: one black cotton sample was 59 mg/kg; only two samples were higher than 10 mg/kg; cotton averages were 1.1-3.6 mg/kg except black at 11.6 mg/kg; nylon and polyester ranges were 0.4-5.5 mg/kg and 0.2-4.9 mg/kg.
• Arsenic: 4 samples exceeded the 0.2 mg/kg direct-skin-contact comparison level; average concentration ranged from below detection limit to 0.35 mg/kg.
• Lead: 17 samples exceeded the recommended limit, including 7 with more than twice the recommended level; samples with lead concentrations between 1 and 2 mg/kg included 8 samples, mostly cotton. The extracted text does not provide a single full lead range.
• Nickel: 6 samples exceeded the 1 mg/kg limit but were less than 4 mg/kg; average concentration ranged from below detection limit to 1.74 mg/kg.
• Cadmium: one red cotton sample was up to 0.41 mg/kg; four other samples were at 0.1 mg/kg; the remainder were below the 0.1 mg/kg comparison level.

Methods (brief)

Five grams of each sample were shredded and homogenized. In triplicate, 100 mg of fabric was extracted in 10 mL of 5% nitric acid at 85-90 °C for 30 min, filtered, and transferred to ICP-MS autosampler tubes. Quantitative analysis used an Agilent 7500 ICP-MS with ASX 500 autosampler. Reference-material recovery ranged from 89% to 104%. Detection limits were 0.01 mg/kg for Ag, Bi, cadmium (Cd), Fe, lead (Pb), Ti, and Zn; 0.03 mg/kg for Be, Co, Cu, Mn, Se, Sb, and Sr; 0.05 mg/kg for arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), Mg, and nickel (Ni); 0.13 mg/kg for Ba, Ca, chromium (Cr), K, Li, Na, and V; and 0.25 mg/kg for aluminum (Al).

Related evidence

• Other fabric-contact home products (case-by-case)

Update history

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