Your Clothes Could Be Making You Sick (2026 Study Revealed)

0:03Darin Olien:Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

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2:20Darin Olien:stoked you're here i want to paint a picture for you and want to give you this understanding of what it's like to buy a brand new t-shirt maybe brand new t-shirt for your kid online you spend maybe five bucks maybe it came in bright red yellow orange you pull it out of the package it looks amazing. Put it on them and you feel like you're smart, you're resourceful, you love giving to your children. I'm not knocking that. It's great. You found a great deal. We all love a great deal. But here's what I want to stress today. That shirt may be laced with a known neurotoxin. I'm not here to scare you.

3:04Darin Olien:I'm here to inform you. If you don't get who I am by now I'm here as a catalyst for change so that we change. And mama bears running the household, really speaking to you because you are the gatekeepers. You're open, you're strong, you're powerful, you're aware, you want the best for your family and your children. So yeah, I'm speaking to you and I know you want this information. That t-shirt, many of them have a known neurotoxin, a heavy metal. It's a poison. And right now, if your child is wearing a bright colored, fast fashion, cheap shirt, well, while you're listening to this, the skin and the gut may be absorbing it.

3:48Darin Olien:And I'm not just making this up. On April 2nd, 2026, researchers from the American Chemical Society released a study that should have been on the front page of every tick tock every newsstand every newspaper on every screen in america they tested children's shirts from a multitude of major retailers every single sample they tested every one every single one exceeded the u.s federal safety limits for lead that's right lead in your kids clothing right now today being sold on their skin. This is the show. Buckle up. You want to know so that you can make another choice. Don't feel bad. We're all experiencing this.

4:40Darin Olien:This is not your fault. This is an industry that has been built way before most of us were even born. So we need awareness and we need the right action. We're going in. You've always known what fast fashion is. Maybe you didn't want to know, but you've lived it. We've all lived it. And it is cheap clothes, disposable trends, a new haul of whatever. Every season, the entire business model is built on one thing, making you feel like you're less than, and you need this to feel better, and that you're getting an actual deal the fast fashion industry is now a 150 billion dollar industry it has grown over 10 in just the last year company sheen just one company uploads an estimated 1 000 new clothing styles every single day do they know the source do they know where all these things are coming from?

5:44Darin Olien:Of course they do. It's petrochemicals. It's not natural. A thousand new clothing styles every single day to keep you hooked. And you need to buy this, buy that, do this, wear this. Let that just sink in. One thousand new styles every day, manufactured at scale, shipped globally, priced at almost nothing. Do the math. Math doesn't add up. People are suffering as a result creating these for you, the people creating them, the thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are exposed to gnarly chemicals. Thousands and thousands of different chemicals on every shirt are being exposed to this. And now we know in this study that not only the workers, but the people wearing, children, you, me.

6:33Darin Olien:So how do you make a shirt for$3? How do you make it bright yellow, so bright, and how do you sell it for a damn profit? How does that even work? You cut every corner you can. You use the cheapest synthetic chemical dyes on the planet. You use the cheapest chemical fixatives, which are binding agents so that the colors fix on there. It's a whole thing. And one of the cheapest ways to make that dye stick is these fixatives. And what is one of the metals they use more than any of them to fix that color on to stay on a shirt? Lead. Specifically, according to Marianne University, researchers who led this study, many manufacturers use lead acetate, a lead compound, an inexpensive called mordant.

7:27Darin Olien:A mordant is a chemical that helps this dye bond to the fabric and maintain those bright colors. So just check yourself. When a color is just fixed to a cloth, well, they got to use some gnarly chemistry. And that gnarly chemistry is gnarly for us. It's long lasting colors. It works, it's cheap, and it is slowly poisoning us, you, me, children. April of this year, study what they actually found. So let me give you the exact research this study was presented at the spring meeting of the american chemical society acs in april of 2026 the principal investigator was dr camilla davers a chemist at marianne university in indianapolis notably she got into this research because of her own daughter who briefly showed elevated blood levels from coatings on toys she started seeing articles about lead and clothing and realized most parents have no idea her team including undergraduate pre-med researchers christina avello and priscilla espinoza tested 11 shirts from four different retailers spanning fast fashion and discount companies.

8:48Darin Olien:The shirts covered the color spectrum, red, pink, orange, yellow, gray, blue. Their method was rigorous. They used x-ray fluorescent spectroscopy for the initial screening. Then the quantifiable analysis via inductive coupled plasma testing, like we're going to remember that. But the samples were acid digested following EPA protocols with bioaccessibility tests performed under EPA 1340 standards. And they also used a gastric acid, which I'll get into later, was used to estimate the lead released during ingestion because there's a little thing that kids do. They suck on their clothes. Saliva was applied to stimulate oral exposure.

9:40Darin Olien:All results were adjusted for child body weight. The findings, every single shirt exceeded the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's limit of 100 parts per million for lead in children's products. Not only that, no amount of lead is good. Zero. And it's already exceeded the Consumer Product Safety Commission standards. Every shirt, regardless of brand, And regardless of price point, none followed U.S. federal lead regulations. Zero. The brighter the color, the worse it was. Red and yellow were the highest lead concentrations. Why, you ask? Because those vivid pigments require the most chemical work to bond and hold those colors.

10:28Darin Olien:But that and they didn't stop there. In a second experiment, the team stimulated stomach digestion to calculate how much lead a child could actually absorb if they put this in their mouth, which they do. Their model for potential transfer was based on mouthing behavior, sucking, holding, chewing on fabric, because that's what young children do. They chew, and they chew their collars. They suck on their sleeves. It's normal. They're finding from the second experiment, even brief mouthing of these fabrics could expose children to leads that quantifies, that exceeds the FDA's daily lead ingestion limit for children on top of the skin exposure.

11:17Darin Olien:And researchers noted that those calculations were likely conservative, meaning the real world risk could be much, much higher. Usually shows up as that in all the research that I've done and even environmental working groups done. Lead researchers said it plainly. Frequent chewing over time could increase a child's blood lead levels to a point where clinical monitoring is recommended. It's a lead on your shirt. One of the biggest questions I get constantly is, Darren, where can I find the best non-toxic cookware? Listen, I don't mess around with things that go ultimately in my body. And that includes what I cook with.

12:05Darin Olien:That's why I swear by Our Place. Because from day one, they've been committed to making clean, healthy, non-toxic cookware and kitchenware. No sketchy coatings, no forever chemicals, just pure conscious design that are beautiful as well as highly functional. I've been using their titanium always pan for months now. It's the only pan I cook with and here's why. Pure titanium, non-toxic, PFAS free. Extremely durable, metal utensils, high heat, dishwasher safe. This thing can handle it all. All in one performance. The best stainless steel cast iron nonstick in a single pan. And here's the real kicker.

13:00Darin Olien:Most nonstick pans, they're still loaded with PFAS. These forever chemicals that break down in your body and stay in your body. And they accumulate over time. We just don't need that. They disrupt the gut microbiome, testosterone, dysregulation, metabolic issues, hormone imbalances, immune dysfunction, and chronic inflammation they contribute to. Think about it. Every time you cook, you could be introducing toxins into your body. And the simple act of switching to safe cookware eliminates that. This is why it's the easiest, most powerful change you can make, certainly in your kitchen, for long-term health and the elimination of toxic exposure.

13:45So stop cooking with toxic cookware. You can change that right now. Go to fromourplace.com forward slash Darren and get 10 % off site-wide. You also have a 100-day free trial to check it out, to try it out.

14:00Darin Olien:free shipping, free returns, no risk to you. So we also have to be really clear. Your skin is not a barrier for this. It's a door. You hear me? Your skin is not a barrier for this. It's a door. There's something the fast fashion industry is betting on about you not knowing. Your skin is not a wall. Your skin is the largest organ. You've heard this, but it is real. It is a living tissue, and it is designed to absorb. And all of these industrial chemicals were never here when we evolved as humans. We made it up. We made this stuff. Now it's absorbing into our body. This is part of the skin's job is to absorb.

14:45Darin Olien:That's why nicotine patches work. That's why hormone therapy patches work. The skin is a delivery system. Research published in the Environment International out of the University of Birmingham showed that toxic chemicals from microplastics can leach into the human sweat and can be absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream. Think about that. Wearing all the stretchy, sorry, all the stretchy yoga pants and all that stuff. The more you sweat, the more it goes in. And all of that is petrochemicals and plastics and PFAS and formaldehyde and lead. The study showed that the sweatier, more hydrated skin absorbs higher levels of chemicals.

15:28Darin Olien:Researchers detected flame retardants in 3D human skin equivalent models. That's right, flame retardants that got all the way through the skin barrier and into the systemic circulation of the body. And here's the big kicker for anyone who exercises. During physical activity, your pores dilate open as the blood temperature rises. Skin acts, sweat acts as a solvent, dissolving chemical residue from the fabrics and carrying them into and from the contact with the skin. Blood flow to the skin increases, dramatically supporting this absorption. These chemicals are being absorbed through the dermal layers and then into the circulation of the body.

16:17Darin Olien:The study published in the Journal of Textile to Skin Chemical Exposure found direct evidence of chemicals migrating from fabric through the skin and into the body. Flame retardants impregnated in children's sleeping wear migrated from fabric to the skin and were detected as metabolites in the urine. Now add lead to that equation of the original reason I was having this podcast from these bright colors. Add a child's thin, more sensitive skin. Add a toddler who chews on everything, chews on their sleeves. Add daily wear accumulated over days, months, now years. There is no safety for having lead.

17:04Darin Olien:No safety standards. Even though they set them, no amount of lead is good. So I want to be clear that there's no ambiguity with this science. If this is on your skin, more than likely it's going in your body. There is no safety levels of lead exposure to children, none. This is not a fringe position. This is a position of the CDC, WHO, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and every major health authority on the planet. Problem is, they say it, no one changes anything. But here's what you can do. You can change. You can buy differently and you can make a shift. The effects of lead exposure on children include damage to the brain, the nervous system, slowing of growth and development, learning and behavioral problems, attention deficit, reduced IQ.

17:54Darin Olien:It's no joke. The research shows that even low-level lead exposure below what was previously considered as the threshold of concern still causes measurable cognitive damage. Studies show that the lower the starting blood lead levels are, the greater the cognitive damage from a given increase in exposure. A pulled analysis of the longitudinal cohort studies found adverse effects of lead in children with blood levels below 10 micrograms per deciliter. That's a very small amount. There may be no safe levels of lead, especially for our children. A clinical study measured intelligence and neurobehavioral abilities in children with elevated blood lead levels found significant negative correlations between lead levels and adaptive behavior, gross motor performance, fine motor performance, language development, and social behavior.

18:58Darin Olien:I know this should scare the shit out of you. It scares the shit out of me. Children with lead exposure showed high rates of social withdrawal, depression, aggression, and atypical body movements. There's more. The IQ links to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, neurotoxicity. It keeps going. Lead is hiding in everyone's closet right now in the children. So when you go fast fashion, cheap, cheap, cheap, bright clothes, there's a huge amount of chemicals. I'm only really calling out the heavy metals. But there's PFAS, there's formaldehyde, there's azodyes. There's all kinds of 8 ,000 synthetic chemicals is involved from cotton in the fields to making a t-shirt.

19:44Darin Olien:It blew me away when I did this research for my fatal convenience book originally years ago now. The dyeing process uses 72 toxic chemicals alone. Just goes on. PFAS is so dangerous. Okay, this is it. Phthalates. I mean, the research on this is gnarly and it keeps going, but I'm not going to leave you in fear. And this is not what it's about. Let's celebrate life by celebrating another choice. Please with me now be a super life leader in your life, in your children's lives, throw out the toxic stuff. You can also get hand-me-downs that have less of this stuff. I want you to take information and And apply it to your life.

20:27Darin Olien:And apply it to your children's lives. And apply it to your life and your loved one's lives. Share this episode. Sometimes information is meant to be intense. So that you get it. You get it. You get it. You get it. Don't turn this off. Don't blow this. Make a note to yourself right now. Make a note. Buy healthier clothing. Get rid of the disposable diapers if you have younger ones. Get healthier clothes on your children and just use the washing machine. You have to buy everything. Never wear new clothes. Never wear new clothes without washing them first. That is an actionable thing that you can do right now that will lower some of the risk.

21:12Darin Olien:Fragrance, coatings, lead, all of this stuff. Go natural, especially for kids. 100 % organic cotton, linen, hemp, wool. By the way, hemp, linen, wool lasts for a long freaking time. More than almost anything else. Follow the organic movement with this stuff. GOTS, G-O-T-S certification, Global Organic Textile Standards. Pay a little more so you have less effect and infection into your children and yourself. Avoid these synthetic blends. Buy less, buy better. Buy less, buy better. Don't buy stuff all the time in fast fashion. Stop getting manipulated by this shit. Stop with the psychological onslaught of you need to buy stuff all the time.

22:05Darin Olien:Be smarter. Buy things that are more expensive and less often and take care of them. Keep in mind, brightest colors usually have the highest exposure. Bright red, yellow, highest lead concentrations. bland undyed many of my things are undyed the shirt i'm wearing right now is is dyed with plants industry of all nations one of the only companies that are doing things great christy dawn's doing good stuff put your money into those companies that care about you tell your pediatrician what's going on so that they can spread it give them this episode give them these show notes and let them spread it to all of their patients because once they know, they can't unknow it.

22:52Darin Olien:And this is rooted in science. This is not some made up thing that a hippie is talking about. This is real stuff affecting children. Use your consumer voice. And the number one thing is tell other friends, tell other parents, send this podcast to them and look at the show notes and read the research yourself can do this. Fast fashion industry is sold BS. It's for convenience and it's fatal. It's manufactured affordability. It's not real. People are suffering. Products are horrible. Chemicals. It's a hidden tax. These are toxic chemicals, heavy metals, neurotoxins in our clothing, in our children's clothing, and in our children's bodies.

23:40Darin Olien:This study that was released in April of 2026 is not the beginning of the problem. It's always been here when we decided to make cheap clothes. But I want to be the beginning of this change and I want you to be this change in your family right freaking now. You can do this and you can make changes and that will benefit you all the way down the line and your children. This is super life. This is your body. Your body is worth it. Your children's bodies are worth it. Way more than a$5 t-shirt. Okay, I'm passionate about this stuff. Come on, because I want you to live free. I want you to be you and not be a victim of things that don't care about you.

24:25Darin Olien:I'm Darren O 'Lean. I'll talk to you next time.