The worst-case scenario for exposure would be to live in a new mobile home where the flooring, cabinets, and furnishings are made of hardwood plywood and other pressed-wood products, to have a closet full of brand-new permanent-press clothing and permanent-press draperies at every window and new carpets on the floor, and to keep the doors and windows closed.
Generally, the use of formaldehyde in such consumer products as permanent-press fabrics, pressed woods, and floor coverings has been reduced, and products containing more than 1% formaldehyde have to be labeled.
Other major sources of formaldehyde included permanent-press shirts and draperies.
Kelly's data on the effect of washing permanent-press fabric "is nice information that we can pass along," notes Peggy L.
Permanent-press and wrinkle-resistant fabrics may have formaldehyde or other irritating chemicals in their finish.
From the agency that brought you
permanent-press cotton and permanent creases in wool trousers in the 1960s comes an exciting new breakthrough.
Yet some infants may be irritated by the conventional dyes,
permanent-press finishes or water-resistant coatings on many fabrics, so parents may want to look into natural fiber wear, or gently-used clothing.
Through earlier ARS research on a cross-linking process for creating
permanent-press fabrics, Blanchard was able to impart flame-resistant properties to cotton carpeting by treating it with nontoxic chemicals called polycarboxylic acids.
Pure polyester retains its initial heat-set and so doesn't need the off-gassing, formaldehyde-laced
permanent-press treatment of cotton and cotton-polyester blends.
Now she says that even minimum contact with perfumes, car exhaust, diesel fumes, pesticides, cleaners,
permanent-press clothing, cosmetics, formaldehyde, carpeting and soap affects her immediately.
The populist energies that Clinton and Gore released in their last days of campaigning--as Democrats always do--lifted the candidates out of their calculated,
permanent-pressed policy mode and into a semblance of genuine spontaneity.