Aug. 10, 2025
Threads of Life — How Clothing Shapes Your Health, Energy, and Environment
"They touch our skin every single day. They’re with us when we sleep, when we run, when we celebrate, when we grieve. We call them clothes. But have you ever asked — what are they made of? And what are they doing to us?"See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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They touch our skin every single day. They're with us
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when we sleep, when we run, when we celebrate, and
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when we grief. We call them clothes, but have you
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ever asked what are they made of? And what are
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they doing to us? This is Carolyn Thompson with Chasing Eden.
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Thank you for joining me today. Today we're unraveling a
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story that stretches from the soft cotton sheets on your
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bed to the shimmering dresses in shop windows, from ancient
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looms to neon lit fast fashioned warehouses. We'll look at
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how synthetic fabrics like viscos, satin, polyester, and nylon are
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not just a question of style, but of health. We'll
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explore how these fibers are born from petroleum and plastics,
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how they can leach into your skin with heat and friction,
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and why your wardrobe might be quietly shaping your well being.
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And we'll also talk about the natural alternatives like cotton, linen, wool, hemp, silk,
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and even their vibrational frequencies. A field of study that
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blends the physics of matter with the poetry of life.
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So let's begin by pulling at the very first loose thread.
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Fast fashion isn't just a marketing term. It's a business model.
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Think of brands producing fifty to one hundred new micro
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seasons every year. Now. I watched a documentary on fast
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fashion many years ago, and it used to be in
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the beginning of the nineteen hundreds when they started to
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create seasons of fashion, we only had two, and then
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it slowly increased to three, four, five, and then it
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just kept going until now it's practically every week. So
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what is the goal for micro seasons every year? Well,
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it's to keep you buying clothes that are designed to
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be cheap, trendy, and disposable. But behind that nine dollars
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T shirt is a complex supply chain synthetic dyes, chemical finishes,
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and fibers that aren't fibers at all. They're plastic, polyester, nylon, acrylic.
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These are polymers petroleum products. They dominate because they're cheap,
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wrinkle resistant, and easy to mass produce. Viscos, which is
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also called rayon, is often marketed as a natural fabric
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because it starts with wood pulp, but that pulp is
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dissolved into harsh chemicals and then spun into threads, and
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then it emerges as something far removed from its origins.
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Satin isn't a fiber at all, it's a weave. Most
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modern satin is polyester satin, meaning you're really wearing plastic
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with a shiny finish. When we wear synthetic clothing, we're
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in constant contact with plastic. The friction for movement, combined
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with body heat and sweat, can release microplastics and chemical additives.
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Some of these chemicals, the thalates, BPA, formaldehyde residues, are
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endocrine disruptors. That means they can interfere with our hormones.
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The skin isn't a perfect barrier. It's porous. Heat and
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moisture make it even more permeable. Think about leggings, sports bras,
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so whimsuits, all of that snug fitting, synthetic and stuff
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that's worn during sweaty activities. It's the perfect storm for
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chemical absorption. Every time we wash synthetic clothes, they shed microfibers.
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These microfibers end up in waterways, oceans, and even in
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the air we breathe. Studies have found that people inhale
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and ingest thousands of microplastic particles per year, and some
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of it comes directly from what we're wearing inside the body.
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Microplastics have been found in the lungs, blood, and placenta.
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We still don't fully understand their long term health impact,
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but the early research points towards inflammation, oxidative stress, and
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potential organ toxicity. So let's talk about the vibrational frequency
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of fabrics, which to some people's sound a bit mystical
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or conspiratorial, but actually can be tracked with a device.
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So if we step into this less discussed realm, the
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idea that everything has a vibrational frequency, we have to
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bring up doctor Bruce Taneo. In two thousand and three,
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he developed an instrument to measure the frequency of materials.
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A healthy human body typically measureds between sixty two to
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seventy megahertz. Organic cotton and linen, especially when untreated and undyed,
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register in frequencies that resonate with life. Linen in particularly
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is fascinating. It's one of the only fabrics that's historically
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used in ancient Egypt for burial wrappings because they believed
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it preserves the body's energy. Wool and linen both measure high,
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but they have a subtle rule. Wearing them together can
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create a zeroing effect, neutralizing the energy. So what about synthetics, well, surprise,
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they often register close to zero. They don't support your
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body's natural resonance, and while some scientists would call this
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fringe physics, cultures around the world have felt it instinctively
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that certain clothes make you feel alive and others make
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you feel flat. Natural fibers like cotton, linen, wool, silk, hemp.
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They are breathable, renewable, and biodegradable, moisture away without trapping
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heat against the skin, and they don't shed the same
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kind of microplastics. So switching your bedding to organic cotton
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or linen can improve sleep, partly due to better temperature regulation,
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partly because your skin is resting against something that doesn't
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off gas chemicals. All night shoes lined with natural leather
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or wool insoles let your feet breathe. They reduce bacterial
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overgrowth in clothing. The reduced static electricity from natural fibers
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may even lower daily oxidative stress. You don't have to
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throw out everything you own, but you can start transitioning.
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Replace underwear and sleep wear first, they're in longest contact
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with your skin. Choose organic cotton sheets and pillowcases. When
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you start buying new clothes, check the fiber content and
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aim for one hundred percent natural materials. For athletic wear,
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consider marino woolblands naturally antimicrobi or microbial, moisture wicking and
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odor resistant. In your home, curtains, rugs, and upholstery made
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from natural fibers reduce indore microplastic dust. Now I've already
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started doing this in my own life. I started researching
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and trying to get all of the fabrics that I
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use in my bedding, my sleeper, clothing, socks, even bras.
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Tried to get them as close to one hundred percent
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natural cotton linen, natural fabrics as much as possible. It's
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not always the easiest thing to do. At one point,
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when I was researching on Amazon for one hundred percent
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cotton socks, I had to go for the men's socks
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because the women's socks always had a like, like a
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twenty percent ratio of nylon to eighty percent cotton or less.
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So I ended up compromising and going for men's socks.
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So there's some things you might want to look in
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a different category and try to find, and other times
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I'll just compromise and say, Okay, you know what, I
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really like that top, and it's got a seventy thirty
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seventy percent cotton, thirty percent nylon or polyester, and I'll
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go ahead and buy that. But the less I have
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in my closet the better. In my opinion, you don't
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have to do it all at once. You can just
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start slowly purging out these synthetic fabrics and starting to
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introduce you to yourself more natural fabrics in your life.
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So clothing, well, it's more than fashion. It's the second
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skin we choose every day. It can carry the residue
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of oil wells and chemical plants, or it can carry
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the living memory of fields, sheep pastures and flax harvests.
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Fast fashions, it sells quickly, but health is slow. It's
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built in layers, in the sheets you sleep in, the
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shirts you wear, and the shoes you walk in. Maybe
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the path forward isn't about owning more stuff, but owning
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better stuff. And one of my favorite sayings is quality
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over quantity. So think about your clothing not just for style,
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but for your life and for health itself. Thank you
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for joining me today on Chasing Eden. If you want
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to learn more or connect with us, we have a
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website called Chasingeden dot net. We'd love it if you
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would subscribe and visit our website. I'd love it if
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you would subscribe to our podcast and you wouldn't have
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to miss any of the episodes. I've really enjoyed today's
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journey in the hidden world of fabrics, and I hope
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that you would join us again soon, as is Sai
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