Polyester fabric
Polyester is the world's most common fabric, making up around 57 percent of all fibre produced. It is cheap, strong, and quick-drying, but it is petroleum-based, traps heat and moisture against the skin, carries the dyes most linked to textile rashes, and sheds plastic microfibres every wash.
Is polyester bad for your skin?
Polyester is hydrophobic, so it holds heat and sweat against the skin, which can aggravate eczema and breakouts. It is also dyed with disperse dyes, the leading cause of textile allergic contact dermatitis (Malinauskiene et al., 2013). People with reactive skin tend to flare more in polyester than in natural fibres.
Comfort and performance
Polyester is wrinkle-resistant, holds colour, and dries fast. On its own it breathes poorly, so activewear versions are engineered with channels to wick sweat. Plain polyester in a dense weave can feel clammy.
Durability
This is polyester's strong suit: it is hard-wearing, holds its shape, and resists pilling far better than cotton or acrylic. Wash it cold to reduce shedding and keep it looking new.
Environmental impact
Polyester is made from crude oil and does not biodegrade for centuries. Its biggest environmental footprint is microplastic pollution: washing synthetic textiles is responsible for about 35 percent of the primary microplastics entering the ocean (IUCN, 2017), and PET, the polymer in polyester, is the plastic most often found in human blood and lung tissue.
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Is polyester toxic?
Polyester fibre is chemically stable and not considered acutely toxic to wear. The real concerns are the disperse dyes it carries (a common cause of skin rashes), poor breathability, and the plastic microfibres it sheds into the environment and the food chain.
Does polyester cause skin problems?
It can. Disperse dyes used on polyester are the most common textile dye allergen, and the fabric's heat and moisture retention can worsen eczema and acne in sensitive people.
Is recycled polyester better?
Recycled polyester cuts greenhouse emissions by roughly 30 to 50 percent versus virgin polyester, but it does not reduce microplastic shedding, and studies show it can shed more.
- Sources
- Napper & Thompson (2016), Marine Pollution Bulletin, fibre-shedding by fabric type.
- Malinauskiene et al. (2013), Contact Dermatitis, disperse dyes.
- Boucher & Friot (2017), IUCN, primary microplastics in the oceans; Leslie et al. (2022), microplastics in human blood.