If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, you may have come across claims that polyester is “toxic” or that we should avoid wearing synthetic fabrics altogether.
As a sun-protective clothing brand that uses 100% polyester performance fabric, we think it’s a question worth taking seriously, but also one that deserves more context.
The short answer? Polyester isn’t automatically unsafe to wear. But not all textiles are made the same.
Why are people concerned about polyester?
Polyester is a synthetic fiber, most commonly made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Some of the concerns surrounding polyester involve the chemicals that may be used during textile manufacturing, dyeing, and finishing.
And those concerns aren’t entirely made up.
Research into the potential health risks of textile chemicals has identified potentially harmful substances in some clothing, including certain dyes, plasticizers, PFAS, formaldehyde, and metals. However, this isn’t exclusively a “polyester problem.” Chemicals can be introduced during the manufacturing and finishing of many different types of textiles.
Research into long-term consumer exposure to combinations of textile chemicals is also still developing. Recent research testing the chemical safety of clothing and textiles also reinforces why looking at what's actually present in a textile can be more useful than judging it by fiber type alone. So rather than reducing the conversation to natural = safe and synthetic = toxic, we think it’s more useful to ask: What is actually in the textile, how was it made, and has it been independently tested?
What about microplastics?
There is another legitimate environmental concern with synthetic fabrics: microfiber shedding.
Polyester and other synthetic textiles can release very small fibers, particularly during washing. This is one reason we believe conversations about synthetic clothing should include environmental impact as well as performance and human health.
At Agua y Sol, environmental responsibility isn't something we want to oversimplify. There are trade-offs involved in almost every textile choice, and we're continually learning how to make better ones. In places like Bacalar, that also means thinking about what we introduce into the water and finding ways to protect ourselves from the sun while reducing our impact on sensitive ecosystems.
Why do we use polyester for our sun shirts?
When I created Agua y Sol, I wasn’t looking for polyester simply because it was inexpensive or widely available. I was looking for a material that could perform in intense sun, heat, water, and outdoor activity.
Polyester has characteristics that make it particularly useful for performance clothing. The construction of our Lafayette Hydrotech fabric provides UPF 50 sun protection, while the textile is lightweight, quick-drying, and designed to manage moisture.
It’s also ideal for sublimation printing, which allows us to permanently incorporate the colorful artwork that has become such an important part of Agua y Sol into the fabric rather than simply printing a heavy design on top, helping our artwork remain vibrant without changing the lightweight feel of the shirt.
For a shirt designed to move between swimming, paddleboarding, exploring a town, and spending an entire day outdoors, those qualities matter.
But fabric safety matters to us, too
Performance wasn’t our only consideration when we upgraded our shirts.
Our Lafayette Hydrotech base fabric is OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified.
OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 is a globally recognized textile certification that tests certified textiles for harmful substances. Its testing criteria cover more than 1,000 substances, including both regulated substances and others OEKO-TEX considers potentially harmful to human health.
The requirements also become stricter depending on how closely a textile is intended to come into contact with the body.
That certification doesn’t mean our fabric is “chemical-free,” and we don’t think that would be a responsible claim to make. It means the certified base textile has been tested against OEKO-TEX’s established limits for harmful substances.
For something designed to sit against your skin for hours at a time, that’s important to us.
Is natural fabric always the healthier choice?
Not necessarily.
Cotton, linen, and other natural fibers can be wonderful materials, but the fiber itself doesn’t tell the entire story. Natural and synthetic textiles alike can undergo dyeing, treatments, and finishing processes, which is why we think it's useful to look beyond the fiber content label and consider manufacturing, treatments, and independent textile certifications.
Choosing the right fabric for the job
We don’t believe there’s one perfect textile for every situation.
A cotton T-shirt might be exactly what you want for one day. A lightweight performance fabric may make much more sense when you’re spending hours under the sun, getting wet, sweating, or exploring outdoors.
For Agua y Sol, our goal was very specific: create a comfortable shirt people would actually want to wear that provides serious sun protection without feeling like a traditional skin-tight rashguard.
After selling our original shirts and learning from how people actually wore them, we eventually chose Lafayette Hydrotech because it brought together the qualities we had been looking for: UPF 50 protection, lightweight performance, quick-drying, moisture management, durability, and an OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certified base fabric.
So, is polyester safe to wear?
Current evidence doesn't support judging a garment's safety based on fiber type alone. At the same time, concerns about chemicals used in textile manufacturing and the environmental impact of synthetic microfibers are legitimate reasons to pay more attention to how our clothing is made.
That’s where certifications such as OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 can provide useful additional information.
For us, choosing a textile isn’t about pretending there are no trade-offs. It’s about asking better questions, selecting materials intentionally, and continuing to improve as we learn more.
Protect your skin. Know what you wear. Protect the places you explore.