By Staff Writer - February, 4th 2014

While they may make your clothes smell as fresh as a spring morning, conventional laundry-care products often contain chemicals with negative health effects ranging from skin and throat irritation to carcinogenicity. In fact, the laundry room may be one of the more toxic areas in your home. Researchers have found that dryer vents can emit more than 25 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when scented laundry detergent and dryer sheets are used, including seven VOCs classified as hazardous air pollutants. This is particularly concerning when dryers don’t vent outside or are blocked, causing indoor air pollution.

Dr. David Juan

You wear your clothes every day and probably take great pains to keep a number of different outfits ready for any occasion.

You’ve likely invested time and effort into making sure your clothes fit properly and look good when you put them on.

It’s kind of odd then, that most of us pay little attention to what we clean our clothes with.

There are commercial laundry soaps galore on store shelves and each assures that it does the best job when it comes to getting clothes clean. But what these soaps are also full of chemicals. The average laundry soap has a number of harmful substances in it that could potentially enter into your skin when you wear clothes that retain some of these chemicals. As for the air you breathe, some estimates peg the number of VOCs that can be released into the air when using commercial laundry soaps or …

Source