To prove his point, last year, Aizome launched a skin care product called Wastecare Created from Aizome’s industrial wastewater, it has won numerous awards for its creative advertising at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, the Webby Awards, and Fast Company. It is working with a Japanese pharmaceutical company to register its wastewater as an active cosmetic ingredient with the International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients system so that other companies can use it in their products.
The first orders of Aizome’s naturally dyed medicinal t-shirts – the debut of its Healthware line – are expected to ship in July.
Totally intended to treat
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of May. I’ve met so many overly ambitious social entrepreneurs who claim they’re going to change the world one handbag or one pair of shoes at a time. East Ambitious, but strategic. He founded Aizome to prove something: that modern, durable, naturally dyed textiles are possible, that they are better for us, and that people will pay more for textiles free of harmful chemicals.
When I first spoke to May in December 2023, he was in northern Thailand on a two-month working retreat. He had brought with him the six-person Aizome team, as well as his wife (Aizome’s co-founder), his newborn, and an environmental lawyer, Karen Wade Cavanagh.
Cavanagh has spent her career working on the legal side of building cleanup efforts after anthrax attacks and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Her job has been to protect people in public spaces and commercial buildings from dangerous contaminants and harsh chemicals. “We know these chemicals are not safe,” she said, referring to products like formaldehyde. “We don’t expect to live with them, breathe with them, sleep with them.”
What she’s saying is that unless you’re really scrupulous, your home is probably full of poorly regulated consumer products that off-gas harmful volatile organic gases, release endocrine disruptors like BPA and phthalates, and shed plastic microfibers. infused with dangerous chemicals.
Cavanagh was drawn to Aizome because of the complexity of navigating the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s health product regulations. And she wants something like Aizome Cavanagh’s children, now adults, suffer from allergies, ulcerative colitis and asthma so severe they had to be hospitalized. One of them couldn’t stand the feeling of clothing tags touching his skin. “I know my son was always sensitive to what he was wearing. I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was real,” she says. “And yet people with these problems go to the doctor and are either told it’s in their head, which doesn’t help, or they’re given medication and told there’s nothing they can do.”
Although most supplements carry a disclaimer stating that they are not intended to treat, alleviate or cure any disease, Aizome leaves are now registered with the FDA as Class 1 medical devices intended to alleviate and relieve skin problems.
This strategy seems to be working. Aizome is very present in the eczema community: it has been recommended by the National Eczema Society until last year, when, ironically, the NES eliminated the entire textile category, claiming that textile products were too complicated to assess.
May has always been keen to prove his theories. He was one of the authors, along with two Egyptian researchers and a researcher from Cambridge University, of a Study 2022 A study published in the Journal of Applied Biomedicine demonstrates the healing properties of indigo. Aizome opens a research division to use government grants to test the medicinal properties and effects on the microbiome of dyed fabrics. Research demonstrates antibacterial properties of indigo has been around for some time (Aizome claims these properties help neutralize body odor).
Even if you think this is all nonsense, if you have the means, there is no harm in slipping into elegant pastel cotton sheets for a good night’s sleep, without worrying about the synthetic chemicals that might be lurking there. A calm mind leads to better rest.
