[afh1]

Hum, almost all of my t-shirts are 100% cotton, or at least that's what the label says. I use mostly the same clothes from 15 years ago so maybe synthetic is more common nowadays? I think the only t-shirts I own that are not 100% cotton are those I've got for free on things like marathons and hackathons. Does it contain phthalate? I have no idea, there is no label saying what they are made of. Probably polyester. Does it have phthalates in any meaningful concentration? This review says basically that "it varies a lot" and "needs further study". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138266892...

[resoluteteeth]

Interestingly Table 4 in that link shows "Plain weave cotton" and "polyster" having similar levels of phthalates.

I don't think phtalates are needed as plasticizers in polyster, so I guess they are coming from the dyes or something else used to treat the fabrics, meaning that the choice of cotton or polyster may not matter for phthalates specifically?

[s1artibartfast]

100% cotton is usually treated with plasticizers, even without dyes

[dghughes]

I wear mostly the same clothes too from 15 years ago I'd agree synthetic is more common nowadays? Shirts, underwear, hoodies, jackets, relzed fit stretchy pants/trousers all seem to be something just not cotton anyway.

[brookside]

I recall the cotton tees of my youth being stiff and terrible-feeling.

[SoftTalker]

Did your mother (or whomever did the laundry) dry them on a clothesline? Air-dried clothes will be a bit more stiff than tumble-dried.

[noisy_boy]

When I was younger, it was common to add starch to make the cotton easier to iron etc - that would definitely make it stiff. Thankfully we don't do that anymore. Comfortwise, Cotton beats practically any other fabric + it gets softer the longer you use it so in a way it actually incentivizes reuse.

[DontchaKnowit]

100% cotton can be waaay comfier than poly blends. Just depends on the weave/wash