Polygiene® odor control permanently protects your garments from smelling like a middle school locker room. Sweat itself is odorless, but it creates the conditions that bacteria need to multiply, and some of those bacteria produce odors. Polygiene permanent odor control stops the growth of odor-causing bacteria on fabrics, so you can wear more and wash less.
Active only on the fabric surface, Polygiene permanent odor control does not interfere with perspiration or with the skin’s natural bacterial flora. Clothing and other textile-based, Polygiene-treated products are safe to use next to the skin. Polygiene particles are more than 100 times larger than nanoparticles and therefore are too large to penetrate to the skin’s barrier. Polygiene-treated fabrics have received Medical Class 1 approval in Europe, the same class that includes bandages for direct contact with open wounds. Polygiene-treated Patagonia® fabrics are bluesign®approved—meaning they offer the highest level of consumer safety by employing methods and materials in their manufacture that conserve resources and minimize impacts on people and the environment. These fabrics meet the bluesign criteria for textile chemicals and processes, including specific scrutiny for anti-microbial products.
Polygiene permanent odor control has been tested for skin irritation according to the Kawai procedure developed by the Kawai Medical Laboratory in Japan. These tests were conducted using the Polygiene solution at levels that were 200 times greater than the levels that are applied to production textiles. The results showed negligible contact sensitivity and there was no additional skin irritation caused by the Polygiene treatment to the fabric.
Polygiene permanent odor control is based on silver chloride made from 100% recycled silver sourced from photographic and industrial applications. The recycling company works solely with recycled silver, with no risk of mixture with mined silver sources. The recycling company operates in accordance with European Commission regulations, including those on environmental and waste management, and the ISO 14001 standard. The purity of the material is strictly controlled and does not contain any residue of other metals. Only very small amounts of silver are required for treating garments with Polygiene odor control so that they achieve highly effective odor control performance. For example, 5,000 garments require the same amount of silver as one or two silver rings.
Polygiene permanent odor control can be applied to fabrics at the same time as other fabric treatments, and no additional energy or water is required in the process. Also Polygiene odor control does not require the addition of binder chemicals to adhere it to the fabric.
Silver chloride and silver sulfide are naturally present in drinking water, in seawater, and in the soil. Polygiene permanent odor control is designed to be a permanent treatment for textiles and last the lifetime of the garment. Although the amount of silver ions released during one washing is negligible, it can occur due to surface fiber abrasion or ion exchange with sulfide compounds in water. If a small amount of silver ions come off of the fabric during washing, they quickly combine with sulfides in the environment to create an inactive, insoluble silver sulfide that does not have any impact on living organisms. The silver ions are therefore deactivated upon reaching any natural waterway. The same would happen upon reaching a wastewater treatment plant, and so there would be no effect to the bacterial and biological rinsing stages, the cleaned water produced by the plant, or the sewage sludge.
From a product life cycle perspective, Polygiene treatment gives garments a number of environmental advantages. Polygiene-treated products can be washed at lower temperature and washed less often, because they can be worn several times between launderings. This is significant because energy and water used to wash and dry garments at home is a major contributor to water use, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of a garment.
Polygiene permanent odor control also prolongs the useful lifetime of garments because bacteria and laundering both break down fibers and eventually wear out the product. This means that Polygiene-treated garments last longer so you don’t need to buy new ones as often.
