Have you ever put on a new shirt and discovered that it makes you feel itchy? Or taken off a new pair of pants at the end of the day to find that the fabric has given you a rash? This problem is increasingly common as more chemicals are added to our clothing when they’re dyed or treated with additives that make them resistant to stains, wrinkles, and odors. Some of these chemicals are irritants that can cause breathing problems or skin issues. Others are toxic enough to trigger life-altering autoimmune diseases. Since the fashion industry operates within loose regulations, the problem of toxic apparel isn’t going away anytime soon.
This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by journalist and author Alden Wicker. Her new book is called To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick—and How We Can Fight Back. We discuss the wide range of chemicals, dyes, and treatments that go into our clothes and offer tips on how to avoid the worst offenders while shopping for a new wardrobe.
Alden’s book is To Dye For. It’s out this week from G.P. Putnam’s Sons; buy it wherever books are sold. She is the editor of the sustainable fashion publication EcoCult. Also read Alden’s reporting on the fashion industry for WIRED.
Alden recommends Vermont. Lauren recommends tzatziki sauce. Mike recommends The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.
Alden Wicker can be found on Twitter @AldenWicker. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:
If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren, I like this shirt that you're wearing. Where did you get it?
Lauren Goode: I have a hard time believing you really like this shirt that I'm wearing.
Michael Calore: Well, it's written in the script.
Lauren Goode: I know.
Michael Calore: But I really actually do like it. Where did you get it? Where is it from?
Lauren Goode: Thank you. This is one of my fancier shirts. I got it at Bloomingdale's, and I got it in a panic the day—humblebrag—before I was going on The Today Show because I felt that I needed to wear something that had a little pizazz to it.
Michael Calore: All right, so you selected it quickly.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: Did you research it before you bought it to find out if it has any toxic chemicals in it?
Lauren Goode: No. I mean, if research means glancing at the price tag and saying, "OK, I think I can afford this," that's the research that I did.
Michael Calore: I see.
Lauren Goode: No, I didn't. I didn't research the toxic chemicals. Are you telling me this is a toxic shirt?
Michael Calore: Unfortunately, we can assume that the shirt probably has some toxic chemicals in it.
Lauren Goode: Sounds terrible. Tell me more.
Michael Calore: Well, why don't we bring on our guest to tell us more?
Lauren Goode: Sounds good.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Michael Calore: Yeah. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: And I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: We're also joined today by the journalist and author Alden Wicker. Hello, Alden.
Alden Wicker: Hello. Thank you for having me.
Michael Calore: Of course. Welcome to the show. Your first time through.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. And I'm very excited to be here.
Michael Calore: We're excited to have you. Today, we are talking about the toxic chemicals in our clothes. Alden has written a new book on the topic, called To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick.
Lauren Goode: Such a good title. To Dye is D-Y-E, by the way.
Michael Calore: D-Y-E.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: Yes.
Alden Wicker: I wish I could take credit. I didn't come up with it, unfortunately.
Lauren Goode: Well, whoever did, I hope they're getting a good percentage.
Michael Calore: For sure.
Alden Wicker: They are, trust me.
Michael Calore: This is a topic that Alden has covered before for WIRED, as well as outlets like The New York Times, Vogue, and her own publication, Ecocult. But To Dye For is her first long-form dive into the topic. She interviewed dozens of researchers, doctors, regulators, fashion industry workers, and regular consumers like you and me to better understand the effect that these chemicals, dyes, and treatments have on our health. So Alden, I want to start by asking you to identify some of these common dyes and treatments that you talk about in your book. What sorts of toxic chemicals are companies adding to our clothes?
Alden Wicker: Yeah. So there's a lot of different types of chemicals, and a lot of different reasons they could be on our clothes. Some of them are intentionally added. So of course, you have dyes. Dyes can be just basic allergens. They can set off people's asthma or their skin issues. Something like dispersed dye, which is used specifically for polyester because polyester is a plastic—it's hard to dye plastic, so you have a special dye for that. You also have performance finishes. So you have stain-proof finishes, waterproofing finishes. Those are actually related, or sometimes identical, to what you have on nonstick pans. So you might have heard about the super toxic class of chemicals called PFAS—the branded name way back when was Teflon—and how the Environmental Protection Agency has started to really take an interest in getting it out of our water supply because these things stay around forever once they're created. That's why they're called forever chemicals. You also have easy-care, anti-wrinkle finishes. You have finishes that just make it feel soft. And then you have just processing chemicals that make it softer or get it slippery enough or strong enough to be dyed or sewn or all those different things, and then those chemicals are stripped off by other chemicals. And then you can have contaminating chemicals. So in the past, things like fungicides and pesticides have been found on fashion because it was used in the warehouse or it was used on the ship that was used to ship all of these types of clothing over. So there are thousands of chemicals that could be in or on or put on our fashion. The last good estimate was by Nike at 3,000, but that was several years ago, and there's a lot of evidence that it's actually thousands more than that. We just don't really have a good idea because we don't have a good idea of exactly what's in our fashion.
Lauren Goode: Hold, please. I've got to go take all of my clothes off. Alden, are some clothing types worse offenders than others? I'm now thinking about the stretch pants that I wear religiously, and I'm pretty sure there're some kind of poly.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. Actually, your stretch pants are probably not great.
Lauren Goode: Great.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. There is a California-based nonprofit that tests different consumer products, and then if they find toxic chemicals that are not labeled under California law as they should be, they will go after those companies. So recently they found BPA, which is a hormone-destructing chemical that you might have heard about with the big baby-bottle scare about a decade ago. They found those in polyester spandex, sports bras, socks, and other types of athletic clothing that's polyester and stretchy. And that's a problem because ... we're not totally sure, the research isn't here yet. But when you sweat, that can draw whatever's in your clothing out onto your skin, and then it can be absorbed into your skin. And hormone-disrupting chemicals can do a lot of damage even at tiny, tiny, tiny amounts, so that's pretty scary. You asked specifically about that, but there are other types of clothing that are particularly toxic. Outdoor gear can have that class of chemicals I mentioned, the forever chemicals, PFAS. In fact, most brands do have that, outdoor brands. There are printed products. So if you get a T-shirt that has a plastic-y logo on the front, that can be really toxic. So synthetics, saturated colors, performances, all the different layers that are put on things to sell them at a markup to us.
Lauren Goode: This is blowing my mind because there's such irony in people, I think, who want to spend a lot of time outdoors, thinking that you're getting out in nature, that you're appreciating nature, and that you're living a more natural kind of existence. And that just butting up directly with this idea that, actually, the performance and outdoor gear that we wear is probably loaded with chemicals.
Alden Wicker: Oh, it absolutely is. I mean, they found a lot of PFAS at Everest Base Camp, for example, because of so many people hiking in and out with their performance clothing.
Michael Calore: Yikes. So you mentioned the toxicity of various dyes. Is there a particular color that's just the worst?
Alden Wicker: Well, that's a good question. Anecdotally, when I was researching this book, somebody told me, "Look at reds. Look at yellows. Look at blacks. Blues, as well." OK. I think I just named pretty much all the primary colors. But essentially ...
Lauren Goode: Google is a terrible offender in this.
Alden Wicker: Yeah, basically, I mean, any super-saturated colors. I did mention that it's actually more about the type of dye than the actual color. So if you were having skin problems, which a lot of people have ... I think one in five people will experience contact dermatitis at some point in their life, and things like eczema and psoriasis ... if you go in to your dermatologist and you say, "I'm having this problem," and they give you a patch test, which is where they put little patches of potential allergens all over your back and then they peel them back and see which ones are causing a reaction, a very common one that they put in there is a certain dispersed blue or black dye. So that's the dye that's used on polyester. It's a known allergen. It causes a lot of problems for people. Again, anecdotally, I talked to a couple of women who—one was Romanian and lived in Alaska, and the other was from LA, and both of them can't do blue clothing anymore for a variety of reasons. So that seems to be a big offender, but that doesn't mean the others can't cause a problem. People who have very serious intolerances to chemicals throughout their life, they tend to go for light, pastel, or even just white or undyed cotton fibers, so that sort of creamy off-white unbleached color that comes through. But yeah, it does seem like blue and black and just bright, neon colors are the worst.
Lauren Goode: Some of the sources that you spoke to for this book developed allergies or severe autoimmune diseases that they believe may have been linked to the type of clothing that they were wearing, or may have been compelled to wear, so I was hoping you could share a little bit more about their stories and also talk about how certain chemicals in fashion can disrupt fertility.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. I did talk to a few people. I talked to one woman, Jacqueline, who has worked in the fashion industry in New York, in a not very glamorous job overseeing production. So she was the one visiting factories and opening these samples fresh from the factories, which really stank of chemicals. She was doing that for over a decade and she developed skin issues, she tested as allergic to some of those chemicals, and then she got appendicitis and developed severe, severe Crohn's. I mean, she was 35 when she ended up in the hospital and she was dying. She ended up getting the medication she needed to reverse that. But it's been a really long, slow slog back to being able to manage her health. And this is an N of one. We can't say definitively that being exposed to these chemicals—which she's very clearly allergic to—day in and day out was the trigger for her Crohn's. But given the latest research on how something like Crohn's or other autoimmune diseases can develop … which is that you have a genetic disposition toward them and then you have a trigger ... it's not out of the question that this was directly linked to her failing health. So that was one really harrowing instance. I've talked to flight attendants. So flight attendants from four major airlines got really sick after the introduction of new uniforms, and I followed a lot of them. There's a Harvard study linking the introduction of new uniforms to Alaska Airlines with a doubling of various health ailments, including multiple chemical sensitivity and breathing problems and stuff. I followed along, and some of them have gotten in touch with me and said, "Hey, I've developed skin cancer on my nipple," which, how would that happen? Others have developed severe autoimmune disease. So in the book, I do speak to some researchers who do trace a line from just allergies to if you're not helping yourself avoid these allergy triggers, it can go into a full-blown autoimmune disease. And then there's one flight attendant from Alaska Airlines, John. I spoke to his partner, and he was sent to the hospital multiple times during his time working in a new uniform, and he passed away at age of 65. Official cause, asthma, and I think it was heart failure. But he was far too young and healthy before this all happened for this to be the way he passed away. So some really harrowing stories, yeah.
Lauren Goode: And what about fertility? How can these chemicals potentially disrupt that?
Alden Wicker: Yeah, so there are a lot of different chemicals that are hormone-disrupting chemicals, or endocrine disruptors that are used in fashion. So PFAS, which I mentioned, BPA, phthalates, some heavy metals are endocrine disruptors. And if you are exposed to even a tiny amount of endocrine disruptors, they can cause a cascading effect in your hormonal and reproductive systems. So infertility amongst men and women has been going up for some time. You might have heard about the men's fertility apocalypse that was in the news a few years back. And one big reason, they think, is the preponderance of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our environment, in our consumer products, in our homes. And one way to be exposed to them is to wear something with endocrine disruptors on it 24 hours a day, and also when we sleep. So there is definitely a link there to a lot of the chemicals that we use on fashion.
Michael Calore: All right. Let's take a break and then we'll come right back.
[Break]
Michael Calore: OK. So we've talked about some of the terrible chemicals that go into the clothes that we wear and some of the many health problems these chemicals can cause. But I want to do a quick wardrobe change here and talk about—
Lauren Goode: Oh, man.
Michael Calore: Solutions.
Lauren Goode: Oh, no.
Michael Calore: You knew it was coming.
Lauren Goode: Wardrobe change.
Michael Calore: Alden, what is a smart shopper to do? What if I just want to buy a new pair of pants that won't make me sick?
Alden Wicker: Yeah. So I want to preface all of this by saying that there are a lot of scary things out there. People have a lot on their plates. If you're perfectly healthy and your whole family is perfectly healthy, first of all, tell me what you do, but also don't add this to your list of things to obsess over. But if you do have chronic health issues, if your kids have sensitive skin, all those different things, you should definitely be thinking about your fashion. I just wanted to say that at the outset. I don't like fearmongering. I want to give people information so they can live their life a little bit better.
Michael Calore: Sure.
Alden Wicker: One thing I would say is avoid polys—so what do I mean by polys? I mean any of the fabrics that start with poly: polyester, polyurethane, all of these different synthetic fabrics, because some of them aren't toxic in themselves, some of them are, right? They can have these plasticizers. But it's also what's put on them. And it seems that people who have allergies or chronic health conditions, they can be triggered by wearing these synthetic fibers, whether it's because of the fibers themselves or what's on them, like dispersed dyes. The other thing you can do is avoid performance and marketing promises. So if it sounds too good to be true, if it's stain-resistant, wrinkle-resistant, anti-odor, easy care, all of these different things, definitely avoid it. A lot of those claims are kind of spurious anyway. There was some recent research showing that PFAS actually aren't even that good at stain-proofing something, so I would just be really careful about sourcing anything that has that in it. Because honestly, it's just a way for them to mark up the price and put a fancy trademark on it and say, "You should pay more for this because it has all these fun qualities." The other thing I would say is to avoid ultra-cheap fashion. So don't buy things off of sketchy social media ads. If you've never heard of the brand, if it seems like the website was set up in five minutes to sell you junk, if it looks like the photos were pulled from an influencer's account, you're probably not going to get what you ordered anyway, there's probably not going to be a way to return it, and it's pretty dangerous. For example, there was a brand that had been set up two years prior that had to be recalled—they made children's shoes—because they had some ... I forget what the toxic chemicals were in those children's shoes. It had just been set up by a Chinese factory a couple of years before. It had one of those gibberish names you see all over Amazon. So be careful about those because nobody's checking in between it being shipped straight from the factory to your front door to make sure that it's safe.
Lauren Goode: What about discount clothing stores? I'm thinking about TJ Maxx, stores like that that people really like and really gravitate toward when inflation is high or the economy is bad.
Alden Wicker: I want to be careful about what I say because I don't want to get in legal trouble, but there have been tests that have found some pretty nasty things at discount stores. Those are better than the ultra-fast-fashion brands because those retail stores can be held accountable, especially in the state of California, for what they sell to consumers. So they're not the worst. There is some accountability there. But it's not a hard and fast rule that the more you pay, the safer it is. The better thing is to look for labels and certification. So one label to look for is Bluesign, another label to look for is OEKO-TEX. Those aren't perfect, but they are the best way to know that the brand has been working with its factories to ensure that they're not using or putting toxic chemicals on your clothing.
Michael Calore: I'm glad that you brought up labels and certifications because when I buy a box of cereal or a tub of hummus, I can see every ingredient listed right on the side. But when I buy a shirt, I see what the material is made of, but I don't know how it was dyed or how it was treated. So will there ever be an ingredient label like that for our clothes?
Alden Wicker: I know. Wild, right? Yeah. It's pretty crazy that even if you know you have an allergy to a chemical used in clothing, there's almost no way for you to avoid it because yeah, it's not listed. I would love that. That's actually sort of the first thing that I'm advocating for, the first step in a process of overhauling the way we use chemicals and put chemicals in this country on consumer products. Because I think if people could see the long, long, long, long, long, long list of chemicals that are in fashion, I think they might actually start to understand that this is a problem. Because I think one of the reasons why people don't realize this is a problem is that yeah, there is no ingredient list. And it's possible now with the technology that we have. I've been told by suppliers that we could come up with that ingredient list. Now of course, they're always going to cry "trade secrets" and all of those different things. But there is definitely a way to do it, and I think that people deserve to be able to pick out clothing that's not going to set them off or that doesn't have carcinogens and such in it.
Lauren Goode: What are the innovations around this that you think are most promising? I'm kind of picturing a world like right now, if someone says, "Oh, I really like your pants or dress." There's this meme where women say, "Thanks. It has pockets," and I wonder if there's a world where it's like, "Thanks. It has dye-free natural rayons" in the future.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. Actually, it isn't a new, new innovation, but it hasn't really taken off and I think it's really cool. This brand of cotton called Fox Fiber by Sally Fox, and it's actually just heritage cotton that grows in different colors so you don't even have to dye it. There's pale pink and green and sort of a nice, beige-y brown. You're not going to get hot pink, but that means you don't have to add, really, anything to it. There's also some companies working on nontoxic finishes and ways to impart performance to textiles without using toxic chemicals. So there's some European, mostly, outdoor brands that sort of do physical directional weave to their fabric so that the water just beads up and rolls off instead of having to apply this toxic (PFAS) durable water repellent. So there's a lot of work going on there, but it's kind of hard to understand what is a legitimate and what is just a rebranding of what was already going on. And like I said, I don't really trust performance right now, so I hesitate to recommend any of them.
Lauren Goode: It also does seem like some of the brands, and particularly legitimate direct-to-consumer brands, that are promoting nontoxic materials in their clothing, they tend to be pretty expensive. Most people can't get the $300 sweater just because it's using natural fibers or no dyes, or it's supposedly better for you.
Alden Wicker: Yeah, and I think that's really unfortunate. I mean, what I don't want to happen as a result of this book is sort of another way in which people with resources, or rich, white ladies who go to Goop have another leg up on the rest of the population in living a healthful life. I really think that everybody should be able to go to any store they want, or order something online and trust that it's going to be safe for them and their kids. But there are some, what we would consider "mass market" or "fast fashion," brands that have been doing a lot of work on this. Hanes is one of them. Levi's, H&M, which I know is surprising for a lot of people. Nike is one of them that's been working on this for a while. Yeah, there's some brands that are working on this that are mass market brands. I would say if it's a brand that cares about their reputation and has a chemical management policy, you don't necessarily need to go and buy the super fru-fru, organic cotton, all those different things. You can just go to there. But again, none of the brands that I name are perfect. They still use synthetics. Patagonia, for example, hasn't gotten PFAS out of every single one of its lines. So yeah, it's not easy to do right now, which is a problem. Which is why yeah, do what you can, but also we definitely need more government protection for this.
Michael Calore: One thing that people can do, which is something that I'm personally committed to doing, is wearing absolutely everything until it's literally falling off of your body. All of my shirts—
Alden Wicker: You're so sustainable.
Michael Calore: I mean, it just feels right. I paid a lot of money for this and I like wearing it, so I'm just going to wear it until I cannot wear it anymore. I think more people should do that.
Alden Wicker: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I would love to do more of that. But as a woman, there's a little bit more pressure to keep up with trends and everything.
Michael Calore: True. I'm owning my male privilege right now by saying I can wear T-shirts with holes in them to just about any social situation, and it's probably OK.
Lauren Goode: I'm the same way. I'm like, "Oh, I'm buying secondhand. I'm going to thrift shops. I'm buying on Poshmark." My athletic socks have holes in them, truly. But then you end up in a situation like Alden is describing, where you're going on The Today Show the next day and you have this total panic attack around, "Oh my God. I have to go buy a new blouse."
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. I was actually in that exact same situation. I was like, "Oh, no. I'm going to have to go on TV. Let me go spend $300 on a natural fiber blast. But there is something to be said for buying secondhand because yeah, it's not fresh off the boat. It's been washed a bunch of times. It's off-gassed whatever volatile, organic compounds it's got going on so it's better. But there is a problem with that, which is in America, you can buy very toxic laundry detergents as well, and they deposit their lovely, fake, synthetic fragrances all over the stuff, and it sticks to it for a very long time. Actually, I heard a rumor that textile recycling facilities in Europe cannot accept old, American-used clothing because it's got too much of this toxic detergent deposited all over it. So another thing that people need to do is don't wash your beautiful nontoxic clothing with fragrance detergent because you're going to undo everything that you did.
Lauren Goode: Oh my God. I want to just crawl into a hole right now. This is ... Wow. I'm just thinking about the fresh spring scent I just started using for my clothing. Got to go home and change everything.
Michael Calore: Yeah, you should put that in the hole.
Lauren Goode: Yeah.
Michael Calore: Actually, don't do that.
Lauren Goode: No.
Michael Calore: No. That would be bad. Alden, this has been a really great conversation. Thank you.
Alden Wicker: Thank you.
Michael Calore: Let's take another break and we'll come back with our recommendations.
[Break]
Michael Calore: All right, this is the third part of our show, where we go around the room and everybody gets to recommend a thing that they enjoy that our listeners might also enjoy. And Alden, since you're our guest, you get to go first. What is your recommendation for our listeners?
Alden Wicker: OK, so I was thinking a lot about what's bringing me the most enjoyment right now on a consistent basis, and I realized that I want to recommend the entire state of Vermont.
Lauren Goode: Mike is just pumping his fists right now. He's so excited. UVM grad, right here.
Michael Calore: Yep.
Alden Wicker: Yeah. My husband and I bought a place here mainly because it is really climate-resilient, and also I convinced him because I told him he could go snowboarding whenever he wanted. But I've really fallen in love with this place. Everybody's super quirky and cool, and it actually does feel like a retreat because everybody's also pretty averse to using the internet up here. So you actually have to go out and meet people and talk to people to get anything done, which I think has been really, really lovely. So if you ever get tired of the wildfires out there, you should definitely consider coming to Vermont.
Michael Calore: The second-greatest state in the union.
Lauren Goode: What town are you in, Alden? Can you say that? I'm like, "Do you want to share? Tell us exactly where you live. Tell the people about where you are."
Alden Wicker: I'm not going to tell you the exact town I'm in because it's a town of 500, so it'd be easy to find me. But I'm in Southern Vermont, so near Brattleboro.
Lauren Goode: Nice.
Michael Calore: No billboards.
Alden Wicker: No billboards. Oh my God. It's so great. No billboards, no big-box stores. Just adorable country stores selling maple syrup wherever you look.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Alden Wicker: Yeah, everything is adorable.
Michael Calore: Well, Jeezum Crow, that's a good one. Lauren, what's your recommendation?
Lauren Goode: My recommendation. Well, number one, on brand, don't use fragrance detergents. I'm going to go home and change everything after this episode, so thank you, Alden, for that tip. My real recommendation this week is tzatziki sauce. Tzatziki sauce, for those who are not familiar, though many of you probably are, is a type of sauce or dip that is very common in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Michael Calore: The Levant.
Lauren Goode: South Europe. Yes. And it's yogurt-based. It's delicious. If it's made right, it's made with strained yogurt, a little bit of cucumber, some olive oil, maybe some salt, different herbs, but it's basically great at any meal. And I realized this recently because I went to this Greek restaurant and I ordered salmon, and I just wanted a tiny little side of tzatziki sauce. They sort of mistook it for I wanted this entire side thing, this large, large bowl of it with pita bread, and I ended up taking it home and then basically just eating it with every meal for three meals straight, and I thought, "Oh my gosh. This is delicious. I need to do this more often. I need to start making my own." So I recommend getting into ... It's really hard to say.
Michael Calore: Tzatziki.
Lauren Goode: Tzatziki sauce, if you are not already.
Michael Calore: Nice.
Alden Wicker: I second that motion.
Lauren Goode: Mike, you can't. You're vegan.
Michael Calore: I have a good vegan tzatziki recipe.
Lauren Goode: I don't believe you. You need yogurt to make this work.
Michael Calore: You don't need yogurt.
Lauren Goode: No, but you do.
Michael Calore: Also, there are vegan yogurts. There's cashew yogurt, there's almond.
Lauren Goode: Oh, God.
Michael Calore: They're good.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: Don't make that face.
Alden Wicker: You know what they call those? They call those probiotic ... What do they call those? Nondairy, probiotic foods at the grocery store.
Lauren Goode: Sounds so sexy.
Michael Calore: Look, where I come from, they just call them vegan yogurt. That's all.
Alden Wicker: What, from Vermont? I thought they like cows up in Vermont, and dairy products.
Michael Calore: OK, don't tell on me up there. I'm a California kid now so I don't want them getting upset that I'm not eating cheese or Ben and Jerry's anymore.
Lauren Goode: Well, that's my recommendation.
Michael Calore: Wonderful.
Lauren Goode: Tzatziki sauce.
Michael Calore: Wonderful.
Lauren Goode: Yes. Mike, what's your recommendation?
Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend a book. I think after you buy Alden's book, which is called To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick, there's a second book that I would recommend. And it's Rick Rubin's book.
Lauren Goode: Oh my gosh. A Rick Rubin recommendation.
Michael Calore: I know. I know. So I did think twice about recommending this. The book is called The Creative Act: A Way of Being. And you've probably heard about it because we're in full Rick Rubin hype cycle mode right now. He's everywhere. He was on 60 Minutes. He's on all the podcasts. He's on NPR. He's promoting this book, which came out in late January, so you may be sick of hearing him now. But I reluctantly started reading this, and it took me a little while to get into it. But now I am obsessed with this book. I just love it. It's so great. It's written as advice to people who have a creative practice, and the book opens with his argument that everybody has a creative practice, whether they know it or not. Even people who drive for a living are creative because they have to come up with new routes on the fly and they're always in the active creation. But if you're somebody who is disciplined about it, in that you wake up every day and maybe you want to write one song a day, or you need to write 10 pages a day, or you need to make one piece of visual art —like a collage or a painting—a day, then this book is for you. It has all kinds of advice. It's written in a way that the chapters are very short but the concepts are very, very big. So it's big ideas written small. And you can pick it up and read for five minutes, or you can pick it up and you can read for an hour and a half, and you'll get something out of it. So I'm the type of person who is like, "OK, yeah, great. Another book about creativity. This is probably going to be boring. It's probably going to be a bunch of stuff that I've heard before," right? Well, of course it wasn't, which is why I'm recommending it. Really surprising. You will get something from this book.
Lauren Goode: It sounds a little bit like The Artist's Way, but without the Morning Pages.
Michael Calore: And he does reference that. He does talk about Morning Pages, but he also talks about a lot of other stuff too.
Lauren Goode: What was your personal takeaway from it?
Michael Calore: Discipline is important, doing it every day. Particularly the life maintenance, like feed the cats, do the dishes, take the trash out. Doing all of that in a regimented way, and making sure that it's all done when you sit down to create, frees up your mental bandwidth to be fully present. And that's something that I've always had a problem with, particularly with work. So if I need to write a story, I get everything done, and then I sit down and write the story so that my mind doesn't wander. The other thing that I took away from it, which comes up multiple times in the book, is that if your mind does wander, it's OK because that part of your brain can be active while you're creating, and it sometimes helps with the creative process.
Lauren Goode: That's great.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Rick Rubin.
Michael Calore: Yeah, so two books for you to get.
Lauren Goode: Yes, after you've read To Dye For and revamped your entire wardrobe.
Michael Calore: Because you spilled tzatziki sauce on it.
Lauren Goode: And used fragrance detergent to get it out. Change everything.
Michael Calore: All right. Well, that was good. Those are good recommendations. Thank you both. And that is our show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Alden, thank you for joining us.
Alden Wicker: Thank you.
Michael Calore: So great to have you on the pod, Alden.
Alden Wicker: Yeah, it was really great to be here.
Michael Calore: And thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you could find all of us on Twitter or Bluesky or Mastodon. Just check the show notes. We'll put some of our handles in there. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth. We'll be back next week. And until then, goodbye.
[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
"gadget" - Google News
June 29, 2023 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/6P5gJKw
Your Clothes Are Making You Sick | WIRED - WIRED
"gadget" - Google News
https://ift.tt/NaGBdUD
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Your Clothes Are Making You Sick | WIRED - WIRED"
Post a Comment