Polyester

Not a fluorochemical

Base materials. Also written polyester, PET, recycled polyester, rPET.

The most common synthetic textile fibre. Not a fluoropolymer, despite the shared word plastic.

Polyester is where this gets misunderstood most often. The fibre is not a PFAS, and it is also the fibre carrying nearly every water repellent and stain resistant finish in the dataset. Which is why this is the largest group here and why the finish terms, not this one, are the ones to read.

What the makers actually said

Of the 1,071 graded products whose materials record polyester alongside a coating or finish, 100% name no coating chemistry anywhere in their published materials. This is a count of what companies published. It is not a statement about what any product contains.

Named a fluoropolymer
0
Named a coating that is not a fluorochemical
0
Named no chemistry at all
1,071

A further 460 products record polyester with no coating or finish at all, so there is nothing for a maker to have disclosed. They are outside the split above.

Free to quote with a link. Of the 1,071 graded consumer products that record polyester together with a coating or finish, not one of them names a coating chemistry anywhere in their published materials, according to PFAS Authority's October 2026 spec sheet decoder edition.

How those 1,531 products graded on our rubric

These are model-based estimates, not laboratory tests, scored on one public rubric. Read the spread against the categories underneath it rather than as a verdict on polyester in the abstract, because the rubric gives every category a baseline and a term concentrated in one category will carry that category’s spread with it.

Median grade 30 out of 100, across 80 categories.

GradeProductsShare
Excellent19312.6%
Good26717.4%
Poor37024.2%
Bad70145.8%

Where polyester turns up

The 6 categories holding the most of it, out of 80. Each one links to the live ranking for that category, best graded first.

Best graded with polyester

One per category, best first, so the list is not five of the same thing.

Worst graded with polyester

One per category, worst first. A low grade here is usually something else on the product, not the term.

Decode a whole listing instead

A product usually names several of these at once, and the one that matters is rarely the one in the title. Paste the full materials line into the decoder and it will pick out every term it recognises, the most open-ended first.

Other base materials

Edition 2026-10-08, read from 11,337 graded products carrying a material string, and frozen at that date. A term is matched against the material and construction string recorded for each product, written from its published materials, specification and ingredient list rather than from a laboratory test. Products count under every term they match, so the totals across terms overlap. Found something wrong? Tell us.