What Not to Wear

Have you seen the show? Some poor woman, getting by day-to-day, is secretly recorded looking less than her best. Her well meaning family appeals for help from the ever stylish Stacey and Clinton. They set up a fashion intervention, ambushing her and offer a deal; bring all your clothes to New York where we will tell you everything that is wrong with all your choices, we’ll give you $5,000 to buy the right clothes, fix your hair, your makeup and transform you into a new, and better, woman. We, the audience, would watch in rapt attention hoping that we didn’t also own something “wrong”, but knowing we did and secretly wishing for some guidance in our own closets.

I had a version of that on Friday, in the continuing saga of Paula’s Nasty Skin. I had hoped we had come to the answer, a chemical found in many daily products, like shampoo, body wash, hand soap, toothpaste, laundry detergent … the list is endless. I had meticulously removed every offending bottle and tube that contained the stuff from my house, and was finally finding relief from the mind-numbing itch. Except that with distance from the light therapy and steroids, the rash came back – not the itch – just the rash. The root cause lies elsewhere.

The doctor had also raised formaldehyde resins as a possible cause and advised a layer of white cotton between my clothing and me. I had taken the advice to heart and cornered the market on granny panties, V-necked men’s tees and cotton camisoles. I was good, right? Wrong. As my brother once said, “If you’ve got a bucket full of water and someone pours in a cup of urine, do you have a bucket full of water and some urine? No, you’ve got a bucket full of urine.” The doctor was really clear; I had to remove the offending chemical from my wardrobe. Completely. No mercy. Dead to me. Gone. I should consider those items of clothing as forever, What Not to Wear.

I started on Saturday morning, looking at every item of clothing I own for signs of the poison. I opened a large black trash bag and started sorting. Any T-shirt with cotton/modal or cotton/polyester blend, out; 100% cotton can stay. The Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, interesting, the blue are cotton/polyester/spandex – gone; black are cotton/spandex – they stay. The cotton/polyester blend dress – gone. Anything with rayon, gone. Corduroy, wool blends, Tencel, color-fast, no-iron, wrinkle-resistant, get rid of it. Yoga pants; exercise pants; most of my pajamas; two of my favorite tunics; leggings; three evening dresses; all my dress pants; most of my blouses; three suits with mixed fabric lining; and so on. A leather coat with lining, my daily wear winter coat and my favorite post gym UWM hoodie, all had to go. By the time I was done and I had filled seven black trash bags. Seven.

If you are like me, your closet needs a good going over, but this was ridiculous. As I surveyed what was left I found a two common themes. The higher end dresses I own were safe to wear, stuff purchased at lower end stores was full of poison. I also found that my warm weather clothes were mostly spared. I was able to keep all my shorts and most of my tanks, swimsuits, sundresses and two of four beach covers. I view this as a sign. Shopping for new work clothes, outerwear, sweaters, even jeans and comfy pants just got a whole lot more complicated. I need easy. I need carefree.

I need a beach.