Concerns Raised Over Substandard Brand Clothing and Quality Issues
Release Time:
2011-04-11 18:49
Source:
www.chinalaunry.cn
Recently, media such as China Central Television and China Network Television broadcast the program "Weekly Quality Report" investigating the quality of branded clothing. The program revealed the results of a recent comparative test on casual wear conducted by the Beijing Consumers Association. The test results showed that quite a few casual wear items indeed had safety issues such as PH value and color fastness, and some well-known brands were also among the casual wear with safety problems.
The Beijing Consumers Association conducted comparative tests on casual pants randomly purchased from major shopping malls in Beijing. Several well-known brand casual pants familiar to many consumers were judged unqualified in the comparative test. Multiple well-known brand casual pants were found to have safety issues such as PH value and color fastness. The safety issues of clothing have sounded the alarm again. Among the 57 samples tested, 21 samples were unqualified, nearly 40% of the samples.
The unqualified casual pants in this sampling involved several brands well known to consumers, including ZARA, Marlboro, Weiming, Sketch, G2000, Golden Crocodile, Hush Puppies, and Guanqi. In this casual pants quality comparative test, the low pass rate of well-known brand products and the wide range of involved brands surprised many people.
Inspectors said that the quality of clothing products is first reflected in the authenticity of the fabric. Some pants explicitly state a high cotton content and low synthetic fiber content, but actual tests show low cotton content, which misleads consumers. Among some branded clothing sampled this time, 7 samples were found to have fabric that did not match the label. For example, a ZARA casual pant's fabric was labeled as containing 75% cotton, 20% wool, and 5% polyester, but actual measurements showed 68.2% cotton, 10.6% wool, and 15.7% polyester, plus 4.0% acrylic and 1.5% viscose. A pair of Fadu brand casual pants had discrepancies between the labeled and actual values of both fabric and lining.
This test was mainly based on two national standards: one is "Instructions for the Use of Textiles and Clothing," which provides technical specifications for identifying products, understanding product performance, and proper use and maintenance to protect consumers from misleading information; the other is the "Basic Safety Technical Specification for National Textile Products," a mandatory national standard implemented on January 1, 2005. It clearly stipulates safety-related indicators such as PH value and color fastness in textile and clothing materials, serving as a safety barrier for clothing quality.
In this clothing sampling test, not only were some manufacturers found to have falsified fabric information, but more seriously, some brand clothing safety indicators did not meet the mandatory national standards. For example, color fastness and PH value are mandatory inspection items that must be complied with regardless of whether the clothing is imported or domestic, branded or lesser-known.
However, inspectors found in the experiment that a Class B pants product, which should meet a PH standard of 4.0 to 7.5, showed a PH value of 3.28 during testing, which is unqualified. PH value is an indicator assessing the acidity or alkalinity of fabric. Since human skin is weakly acidic, if the PH value of textiles differs too much from that of the skin, it can irritate the skin, disrupt the body's balance mechanism, and make it easier for bacteria to enter the body, causing harm.
The results of this clothing sampling test showed that the PH values of samples from the "Weiming" and "G2000" brands were unqualified. A "Brian" brand casual pant sample had a formaldehyde content of 95mg/kg, exceeding the mandatory standard limit of ≤75mg/kg for Class B products; a "Golden Crocodile" brand casual pant exceeded national standards in both PH value and formaldehyde content, with formaldehyde reaching 107mg/kg. The national mandatory standard classifies textile clothing into A, B, and C categories: A for infant products; B for products in direct contact with skin; C for products not in direct contact with skin. Formaldehyde content limits are ≤75mg/kg for Class B and ≤300mg/kg for Class C. Clothing with excessive formaldehyde content gradually releases free formaldehyde during wear, which can harm the body through skin contact and inhalation. Long-term exposure to formaldehyde gas can cause headaches, dermatitis, eczema, and other symptoms.
This test also included testing eight color fastness indicators specified by national standards. Color fastness refers to the degree of color durability in textiles. It mainly indicates whether the color on textiles or clothing fades or bleeds when exposed to sweat contamination, washing, or friction. Clothing with poor color fastness tends to fade or lose color during wear or washing.
Through comparative testing, a ZARA casual pant had the worst color fastness, failing in acid sweat resistance, alkaline sweat resistance, and wet rubbing resistance. In addition, casual pants samples from 15 brands including Marlboro, Weiming, Sketch, G2000, Golden Crocodile, and Guanqi also failed to meet national color fastness standards.
Ge Chuanbing, director of the National Clothing Quality Supervision and Inspection Center (Tianjin), said that the quality issues this time are reflected in PH value, formaldehyde, and color fastness. The main reasons lie in the fabric, fabric pretreatment, and the additives in auxiliary materials. If the process is not handled properly, as well as in post-treatment processes, improper handling causes PH values and other indicators to exceed standards.
Luo Gang, director of the Social Supervision and Consumer Guidance Department of the Beijing Consumers Association, stated that the results will be made public to society and reported to relevant administrative departments. The specific data of this test will also be fed back to consumers associations in provinces and cities nationwide, requesting them to supervise these products in their daily work and guide consumers to choose products suitable for themselves.
So far, no manufacturer of unqualified products has publicly responded or issued a statement regarding these test results.
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