Beware of this Stinky Amazon Jacket
My brand-new denim jacket smelled like garbage; I was determined to figure out why
By Iris Aguilar
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Editor: Karrie Witkin | Designer: Kelsey Wolf | Illustrator: Rabbit Person Illustration | Copy Editor: Katie Frankowicz | Communication/Support: Meg Chellew
I was once obsessed with a jacket from Amazon, but not exactly for its design or price. Before the pandemic wreaked havoc in our lives, I worked crazy hours in an environmental chemistry lab that focuses on sustainable water use. My last job as a postdoctoral researcher was pretty demanding, so although I was fully immersed in one aspect of sustainability, ethical fashion and conscious consumerism had not crossed my mind at the time. The truth is that, out of convenience, I would often buy some basic garments from Amazon. When it was time to replace a few cardigans I had worn to shreds, I went to the app and searched for a lightweight jacket. Right at the top of my results was a very generic black denim jacket. It had a 4.5-star rating (with over 5,000 reviews) and seemed like a safe bet.
“I went back to the Amazon page and found several comments mentioning that, because of the smell, customers threw the jacket in the trash the moment they got it.”
When the jacket arrived, I took it out of the bag and was punched in the face by a strong rotten egg smell that I hoped would go away in the wash. To my dismay, the smell was not only as strong as ever after doing the laundry, but it had tainted some of my other clothes as well! At that point, it became personal. If there are no researchers in your life, let me tell you that (a) our labs are nothing like those you see on CSI or the movies and (b) we spend a big chunk of our waking hours (and sometimes dreams) troubleshooting our experiments. This means I am the type of person with the patience and stubbornness to try and try and try again until I can find some answers.
I hung the jacket outside for a few days to air it out while I did some reading. I knew that the smell had to come from a sulfur compound (I’ve worked with some chemicals that smell like a garlic-eating skunk), so I googled “sulfur smell black denim.” A deep dive on Reddit revealed several subthreads of frustrated people complaining about brand new jeans, jackets and t-shirts that smelled like sewage, rotten egg or skunk, which meant that I wasn’t alone. Some of the posters assumed their garments smelled because they were extremely cheap fast fashion, but there were complaints about “higher end” jeans too.
It turns out that sulfur dyes are widely used on denim — on their own or combined with indigo — because they are cheap, work great with cellulosic fibers (cotton, viscose, etc), and can stand several washes without extreme fading. But there’s a catch: Just like indigo, most sulfur dyes have a low affinity for water, which is the reason why you can wash your blue and black jeans without extreme color loss. This also means that if you add powdered dye to tap water, it will not dissolve; the particles will just float around as a suspension. If you’re not familiar with suspension, just remember the last time you let your hot cocoa or matcha sit for too long and ended up with a bunch of particles in the bottom of the mug, and compare it to a cup of black instant coffee where everything is perfectly dissolved. This is a problem in the textile industry because dyes need to be water soluble so they can properly attach themselves to fabrics like cotton.
Now here’s the magic of chemistry: You can actually turn sulfur and indigo dyes into a water-loving soluble form by adding certain chemicals to the mix, especially reducing agents. A reducing agent is a chemical that will remove or subtract oxygen from the environment (in this case the tap water) where you want to dissolve the dye. And guess what? If you’ve ever used Rit color remover, you’ve worked with a reducing agent known as sodium dithionite! The reason why you were able to strip the color from your clothes is that the insoluble dye turned into a soluble form. Isn’t this exciting?
So what does this sneaky chemistry class have to do with my stinky jacket ordeal? Well, in the case of sulfur dyes, both the dye itself and the reducing agent (e.g. sodium sulfide, sodium dithionite, etc.) have some serious stink bomb potential. With the little information I have about the jacket, the smell could come from excess dye that was not rinsed properly to cut costs. Another possibility is an excess of reducing agent that lingers on the fabric. The smell could also be due to a bad batch of dye or the dye breaking down. These chemicals can decompose under high temperatures, humidity, and acidic conditions. As they break down, they give off extremely low quantities of a gas that smells like rotten egg (hydrogen sulfide). So many unanswered questions, but still a small victory for me.
I didn’t gloat for long because although I most likely understood the source of the problem, I still needed to solve it. First I tried classic DIY suggestions like washing the garment in baking soda and vinegar, but I didn’t expect such mild chemicals to work (and, at least in my case, they didn’t). Then there were wilder suggestions, like boiling or baking the garment to break down the dye so that it could be washed out of the denim. I avoided going the baking route because my jacket was made with a stretchy polyblend and high temperatures would have damaged the spandex and polyester. After several laundry cycles, baking soda, vinegar and boiling water the color started to fade, but the jacket still smelled. I was about to pull the trigger and purchase some reducing agents so that I could attempt to remove some of the dye, but I had to stop myself. After all this work, I came to the realization that I didn't like the jacket that much. It was “bleh.” I was just obsessed with solving a chemical riddle.
During the initial months of lockdown I was swamped with work, so I eventually put the jacket in a “free stuff” box outside my house, hoping someone would take it. I felt terrible about wasting my money and time only to burden another poor soul with a generic-looking stinky jacket. The jacket was actually gone in a few hours, but its existence still bothered me. I went back to the Amazon page and after typing specific keywords in the review section I found several comments mentioning that, because of the smell, customers threw the jacket in the trash the moment they got it (apparently it was a problem with darker dyes and light washes were OK).
Now I felt even more guilty. Not only because I “gave up” on resolving the smell but because I was burdened by the realization that there were so many human beings involved in making and shipping this item, who likely faced health and occupational hazards or terrible work conditions for something that would go straight to the dumpster. Most dyes are initially sold in a powder form that can fly around and get into people’s lungs, throats and eyes, which can be hazardous with constant exposure, especially if the workers don't use proper personal protection equipment. Reducing agents are also potentially hazardous because they are corrosive and can release gases like hydrogen sulfide that are toxic at high concentrations. Now that I’m on furlough, I wish I had kept that jacket. I might have cut it up and attempted a sort of smell-removing experiment (maybe worthy of a satirical Nobel Prize), so that I could finally offer some solutions to those haunted by smelly new garments.
Another thing that struck me was that apparel companies probably know their products have an unpleasant smell that might render the garments unwearable, and yet they sell these things and make it someone else’s problem. Needless to say, after this fiasco I stopped buying clothing from Amazon and slowly became interested in the impact of my purchases. When we buy new clothes, we analyze things like the style, fit, color, the texture of a fabric, but we might not consider that smell can also be a massive issue (remember that Seinfeld episode with the car that had BO?). I can only imagine that with the rise of e-commerce during the pandemic there have been countless items that are returned or discarded because of the way they smell or feel. It’s impossible to judge either of these things when you are shopping online.
To address the larger issue of avoiding disposable clothes, I consciously ask myself the following questions before buying something new: Do I truly need it? Does the style resonate with me (no more generic denim jackets for me)? Can I find it secondhand? Do I know what happens if I return it? Would I be willing to go out of my way to properly take care of it? And more importantly, is this garment worth the environmental impact and risks that factory and logistics workers face to make it?
My obsession was sparked by sulfur dyes, but there are countless dyes, detergents, solvents, and acids that are used in the textile industry in order to produce the clothes that we consume. By now I think most of us have seen images of rivers in China or India with a bright blue or red hue. All these visible and invisible waste chemicals end up in our water resources and tend to persist for years, negatively changing the environment that aquatic life needs to subsist (remember that reducing agents deplete oxygen levels in water). However, I can say that this situation is not all doom and gloom; there have been some scientific efforts to develop more environmentally-friendly chemicals and methods in the textile dyeing process. When used in combination with sulfur dyes, some sugars (e.g. fructose, lactose, maltose) can work surprisingly well as non-toxic and biodegradable reducing agents, and enzymes will do the trick as well. A totally different route is using electrodes to generate the reducing environment without adding extra chemicals. Just remember: No amount of exciting scientific development or technology can justify mindless consumption!
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