Fast fashion is an inexpensive way to dress rapidly growing kids. But preliminary research has found that the fabric in some of these items contains an unwanted, toxic ingredient: lead. After testing several shirts from different retailers, undergraduate researchers found that all samples exceeded U.S. federal regulatory lead limits. They also estimate that even briefly chewing these fabrics (which young kids tend to do) could expose children to dangerous lead levels.
The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2026 is being held March 22-26; it features nearly 11,000 presentations on a range of science topics.
Cristina Avello and Priscila Espinoza
Kamila Deavers, the principal investigator of the project, began studying lead contamination after her young daughter briefly showed elevated levels of lead in her blood from toy coatings, which happened before today's strict federal lead limits were in place. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission currently has a 100-parts-per-million (ppm) lead limit for children's products like toys and clothing. So now, Deavers and undergraduate researchers in her chemistry lab at Marian University focus on identifying heavy-metal-exposure risks in everyday life and sharing the results with the local community.
"I started to see many articles about lead in clothing from fast fashion," says Deavers. "And I realized not too many parents knew about the issue."
Previous studies have found high levels of lead in the metal parts in some children's clothing, such as zippers, buttons and snaps, which has led to product recalls. But lead has also been reported in adult fast-fashion textiles. Deavers says that some manufacturers use lead(II) acetate as an inexpensive way to help dyes stick to the materials and produce bright, long-lasting color.
Cristina Avello and Priscila Espinoza, who are both on pre-medicine tracks at Marian University, joined the project because they wanted to investigate the potential impact of fast fashion on the pediatric population. They saw working in Deavers' lab as an opportunity to combine meaningful scientific research with community education on an overlooked health issue.
Lead exposure is considered harmful at any level, potentially causing behavior problems, brain and central nervous system damage as well as other negative health effects. Children under 6 years old are considered most at risk from exposure, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Not only are children the most vulnerable to the effects of lead, but they're also the population that is going to be putting their clothes in their mouths," says Avello.
The team tested 11 shirts that spanned the rainbow - red, pink, orange, yellow, gray and blue - from four retailers, including fast-fashion and discount companies. "We saw that the shirts we tested were all over the allowed limit for lead of 100 ppm," says Espinoza. No matter the brand, brightly colored textiles, like red and yellow, tended toward higher amounts of total lead than muted colors. Additionally, Avello recognizes that it's not feasible to test all children's clothing items; but from what the team sampled so far, none followed U.S. federal lead regulations.
In a second experiment, the researchers simulated stomach digestion, calculating potential lead exposure and absorption from the tested items. The analysis estimates the maximum lead bioaccessibility within gastric acid, and the researchers used that data to model the potential transfer during mouthing behavior (e.g., sucking, holding or chewing on fabric). The findings suggest that such exposure would exceed the daily lead ingestion limit for children, a safety benchmark set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These bioaccessibilty calculations are likely conservative, says Deavers. Regardless, the data suggest frequent chewing over time could increase a child's blood lead levels to a point where clinical monitoring is recommended.
Next, Avello and Espinoza will study more shirts and examine their data to see if there is a relationship between the fabric's lead levels and what children could absorb. They would also like to explore how laundering affects the lead(II) acetate, including whether washing contaminated clothing could spread it to other garments and how different detergents interact with it. For example, it could create a lead-containing scum inside the washing machine that would need to be removed to avoid releasing the contamination into wastewater.
The researchers want these initial results to encourage more thorough screening of clothing items being sold and push the textile industry to find safer replacements to lead(II) acetate during the dyeing process. Alternatives already exist to fix dyes to fabrics and keep them vibrant, including natural mordants from plants with high tannin contents such as oak bark, pomegranate peel and rosemary, and alum, an environmentally safe mordant. "But if you want to change the clothing industry's technology, that will cost a lot of money," says Deavers. Without consumer or policy pressure on textile manufacturers to explore safer dyeing methods, there's little incentive to switch.
Ultimately, the team's goal is to raise awareness and educate consumers on the potential risks of lead exposure from children's fast fashion, so people can make informed choices. Avello concludes, "Everything that we're doing is only important and helpful if we talk about it."
The research was funded by internal grants from Marian University and Sigma Zeta.
Visit the ACS Spring 2026 program to learn more about this presentation, "Lead contamination in fast fashion children's clothing," and other science presentations.
