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Comprehensive Understanding about the Safety Performance of Textile Products

Why do you need to Improve the Safety Performance of Textile Products?

The above recall cases are being performed and will continue to be performed. The main reason is that most textile enterprises have not kept up with the changing trend of textiles both ideologically and technologically, and have not fully understood the evaluation requirements of textile safety performance.

Understand the Evaluation Requirements of Textile Safety Performance

Three aspects of textile safety performance evaluation

1 Physical safety performance evaluation of textiles

There are many corresponding regulations and standards, the following, there is some brief introduction to the corresponding regulations and standards for the three common important problems.

1.1 Safety performance of children's clothing components
US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act — CPSIA: Strengthen the safety requirements and safety management of children’s supplies. Three safety standards for children’s clothing issued by China. Common standards: ASTM F1816, EN 14682, BS 7907, 16 CFR PART 1610, 16 CFR PART 1615-1616, 16 CFR PART 1500: 51-53, GB/T 22702–2008, GB/T 22704–2008, GB/T 22705–2008
1.2 Flammability performance
In 1953, the FFA was passed and subsequently amended in the United States, which enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Committee. CPSC formulated the following series of textile flammability regulations and standards: 16 CFR 1610, 16 CFR 1611, 16 CFR 1615, 16 CFR 1616, 16 CFR 1630/1630, 16 CFR 1632. In addition, the British textile combustion performance standard mainly refers to BS 5852, suitable for furniture cloth, curtains, decorative cloth of home, hotel and entertainment.
1.3 Colour fastness
There are four indicators that are directly related to clothing or the use of textiles. Among them, color fastness to washing, color fastness to perspiration and crocking fastness implement the global unified ISO 105 series standard. There are three standards of color fastness to saliva: Chinese standard GB 18401; Chinese standard GB/T 18886; German standard DIN 53160, and adopted by EU.

2 Chemical safety performance evaluation of textiles

2.1 Azo-dye
Most of the dyes on the market are based on azo. Among these azo-dye, about 210 kinds of dyes will decompose or reduce in long time contact with the human skin, then produce carcinogenic aromatic amines to the human body, which should not be used.
2.2 Carcinogenic dye
Carcinogenic dye refers to the dye that can induce carcinogenesis in human body without reduction and other chemical changes. Currently, which is absolutely prohibited.
2.3 Sensitizing dye
Sensitizing dye refers to the dye that causes allergy to the human body.
2.4 Heavy metals
Heavy metals once absorbed by the human body, will accumulate in the liver, bones, kidneys, heart and brain, which will cause great damage to the human body when it reaches a certain extent.
2.5 Free formaldehyde
Formaldehyde has a strong stimulating effect on the human body, can cause respiratory tract inflammation, gastroenteritis and so on, serious may also induce cancer.
2.6 Chlorophenols
Such as pentachlorophenol (PCP), have been proven to be a toxic substance that can induce a human body to be deformed and cancer.
2.7 Chlorine-containing organic carriers
Such as trichlorobenzene and dichlorotoluene, are not only harmful to the environment, but also induce malformations and cancer.
2.8 Pesticides
Some pesticides are quite toxic, if absorbed by human skin, can cause cancer.
2.9 Environmental hormone
There are about 10 kinds of textile auxiliaries banned at present, such as pentachlorophenol, polychlorobiphenyl, polychlorodioxin, polychlorodibenzofuran, polybrominated biphenyl, alkylphenol, p-nitrotoluene, p-diphenylphenol and so on.

At present, there are two most influential organizations: the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 and the European’s “Eco-label”, which can be used as a reference for textile chemical safety performance detection.

3 Component marking safety performance evaluation of cloth

For a long time, it is difficult to carry out the work smoothly to verify whether the marking of clothing component is correct or not. Therefore, the standard of the label of the textile label should be enforced in the form of legal text, which used to label component of all the household textiles such as fibers, yarns, fabrics and clothing products.

In 2013, Amazon, Leon max, Macy’s and Sears, were fined $1.26 million by the federal trade commission for misidentifying rayon as bamboo fiber, the heavy fine reflects that the determination of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to deal with such matters seriously by the law.

The common regulations for evaluating the fiber component safety performance are as follows:

  • EU Regulation: (EU) No 1007/2011
  • U.S. Regulation: The Wool Products Labeling Act, 15 U.S.C. § 68; The Textile Products Identification Act, 15 U.S.C. § 70; 16 CFR Part 300 — Rules and Regulations under the Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939; 16 CFR Part 300 — Rules and Regulations under the Textile Fiber Products Identific Ation Act.
  • China Compulsory Standard: GB 5296.1 — 2012 and GB 5396.4 — 2012
  • Canada Regulation: Textile Labelling Act Textile Labelling and Advertising Regulations Guidance on Labelling Textile Articles Derived from Bamboo
  • Australian regulation: Commerce (Trade Descriptions) Act 1905 Commerce (Imports) Regulations 1940

Development and Significance of Textile Safety Performance Testing

In recent years, there has great change for the textile safety performance demand in the world, many countries have established various regulations and decrees on harmful chemicals. The entire international textile market has gradually formed three key points of concern: safety issues, hazardous chemical conditions, and whether there is an eco-labelling.

With the increasing globalization of the textile industry and people’s attention to ecology and safety deepening, green barriers and quality and safety issues are becoming new trade barriers. The concepts of “green textile products” and “ecological textiles” have rapidly entered the field of international textile and clothing trade, and countries have put forward higher requirements for the “safety” of textiles and clothing in the using process. In this case, textile enterprises must enhance their competitiveness and keep up with the trend of the times in the fierce global competition, which is the significance of TESTEX Team‘s commitment to the research and development of textile testing instruments.

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