Understand What Your Clothes Are Made Of
Greener Closet scores clothing from what the product listing discloses: fiber mix, listed certifications, and known properties of those materials. We do not lab-test garments or prove that a finished item contains or lacks PFAS.
Fiber labels are a starting point, not a chemical inventory. Shoppers still have to compare the exact item, the scope of any certification, and what the seller does not say.
What We Analyze
Each product receives a score from 0 to 100 based on six material factors. A higher score indicates fewer modeled concerns. Every score is a tradeoff read from disclosed composition, not a medical verdict or a PFAS test.
Synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon can shed plastic microfibers during wear and washing. We score the disclosed synthetic share; we do not measure a specific garment's shedding rate.
Some water- and stain-resistant finishes use PFAS. We apply a default penalty for materials commonly associated with those treatments. A fiber label does not prove a finish is present or absent.
How long a material takes to decompose. Synthetic materials can persist for hundreds of years, while natural fibers break down much faster.
The energy required to produce each material varies significantly. Polyester from virgin petroleum requires more energy than organic cotton or recycled fibers.
Certain azo dyes can release listed aromatic amines. We flag materials commonly associated with those dye processes. The fiber name does not identify the dye on a finished garment.
How much a fabric sheds fibers during use. This affects both indoor air quality and water systems when garments are washed.
Weights reflect relative concern in the current model and are updated as evidence is reviewed. They are not a diagnosis.
How It Works
Paste a retailer product URL and we'll score it. The process is fully automated and usually completes in under 30 seconds.
Submit a URL
Paste a product link from any clothing retailer. We'll extract the page content and identify product details.
Extract Materials
AI identifies the fabric composition, certifications, and manufacturing details from the product page.
Calculate Score
We match disclosed materials against our database to calculate scores across six material factors.
Our Methodology
We maintain a database of textile materials and their known properties, compiled from peer-reviewed research on textile materials, environmental assessments, and industry standards bodies. When analyzing a product, we match its stated composition against this database. That is not the same as testing the finished garment.
Each product starts at 100 points; penalties are applied per material, weighted by its proportion in the garment, across the six factors above. The full methodology — the scoring process, data sources, update cadence, and limitations — is documented on its own page.
Why We Focus on Health
Clothing sits against your skin for hours every day. The materials in that clothing can shed fibers, off-gas chemicals, and transfer substances through sweat and friction.
Most sustainability tools focus on carbon footprints or water usage. Those are important metrics, but distant ones. We prioritize the factors most directly relevant to you: what's in the fabric, what it releases, and what that might mean for your health.
This isn't about fear. It's about information. Some materials are widely used precisely because they're cheap and effective, even if tradeoffs exist. Understanding those tradeoffs is the first step to making decisions that work for you. Scores are not medical advice, and they do not prove a garment is safe or PFAS-free.
Who publishes this, and how to report an error
Greener Closet is the author of this site. Shopping guides, methodology pages, and scores are organization-authored unless a page names a person who actually wrote or reviewed it. We do not invent expert credentials.
Scores come from disclosed product listings and our materials database. Some older articles were drafted with AI assistance and are being reviewed against the same evidence contract: disclosed composition, separately sourced finishes and certifications, and unknown where unsupported.
If a score, source, product example, or health-adjacent sentence is wrong, use the contact form. Include the URL and what should change. Corrections that affect a live page are dated on that page.
Common Questions
Start Understanding Your Clothes
Paste any product URL to see the disclosed materials and the score those materials produce.
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