Nobody has published a study that tested fight shorts, specifically, for PFAS. Not ours, not anyone else's. If you came here for a lab result on a named pair of MMA shorts, it doesn't exist yet.
I went looking for that study while I was sourcing fabric, because I wanted to know what this category actually puts on a short before I decided what ours would carry. The search came back empty. It's still empty.
Most articles fill that gap with the same advice: buy natural fiber and stop worrying. The best measurement anyone has taken says that advice fails on its own terms, and fixing it is the whole point of this page.
The finish is the risk, not the fiber
PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. It is a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals, and many of them persist for years in the environment and the body. The usual route into apparel is finishing rather than the yarn itself. They get applied to make fabric shed water, resist stains, and release oil. The EPA describes exactly that use, listing PFAS as stain and water repellents used on carpets, upholstery, clothing, and other fabrics.2
The clearest measurement of what that means for a buyer comes from a 2022 study in Environmental Science and Technology. Researchers pulled 72 children's textile products marketed as stain-resistant off US and Canadian shelves. They found PFAS in every one, from both markets, with total targeted concentrations running from 0.250 to 153,000 ng/g. Then comes the finding nobody repeats: the school uniforms made of 100 percent cotton carried higher total PFAS concentrations than the synthetic blends.5
Read that twice. It inverts the advice everyone gives. Every item in the sample carried a stain-resistant marketing claim. Every item tested positive. The fiber gave no protection, and the cotton ran higher than the blends. There was no unmarketed comparison group, so the study cannot show that the tag predicts PFAS. What it shows is narrower and still useful: the claim is a warning flag worth acting on, and choosing cotton is not a way around it.
The chemistry itself is specific enough to name. Durable water repellent finishes fall into four groups: side-chain fluorinated polymers, silicones, hydrocarbons, and other chemistries including dendrimer and inorganic nanoparticle systems. The review reports large performance differences between the alternatives. The one that matters most is that the non-fluorinated ones lack oil repellency.6 That is the performance case for fluorinated DWR. It is not a measured account of why any given company still specifies it.
On health, two sentences and a pointer. The World Health Organization's cancer agency classified PFOA, one of the most-studied PFAS, as carcinogenic to humans.1 The best-documented exposure routes are drinking water, food, occupational settings, and use of products made with PFAS.2 The hazard case belongs to the full chemical inventory of a pair of MMA shorts and to how these compounds interact with hormones; this page stays on the finish.
What the testing has actually found
There's no fight-shorts dataset. There is activewear testing, and it is worth reading precisely rather than as a headline.
Mamavation, working with Environmental Health News, sent a selected set of 32 pairs of activewear, mostly leggings and yoga pants, to an EPA-certified lab and tested for organic fluorine as a PFAS indicator. Detectable fluorine turned up in roughly 1 in 4, ranging from 10 to 284 parts per million. The other 75 percent showed none.3
Three caveats travel with that number, and the pages quoting it usually drop all three. It is women's leggings, not men's fight shorts. Read it as a category proxy, not as a measurement of your gear. Organic fluorine is an indicator, and it does not identify which PFAS are present or at what levels. And the result cuts both ways. A quarter had detectable fluorine and most did not, which is a category with real variation rather than one that is uniformly contaminated.
Set the two investigations side by side. Neither drew a random sample. A selected set of activewear: about a quarter flagged. Products selected because they were marketed as stain-resistant: all of them.5 Two differently selected studies is not a controlled comparison, so read the direction rather than a ratio. A repellent claim on the tag is a warning flag, not proof, and fiber is not protection.
What a label is legally required to tell you
US textile labeling law is short on this point, and the exact shape of it is worth knowing. Federal rules enforced by the FTC require most textile products to carry a label listing fiber content, country of origin, and who manufactured the item or is responsible for marketing it.8
That is three disclosures, and a chemical finish is none of them. A short can be finished with side-chain fluorinated polymer and still carry a label that is fully compliant, fully accurate, and silent about it. That is why "check the label" is such weak advice. The label is answering a different question.
California is where US law comes closest to putting a finish on a tag. From January 1, 2025, AB 1817 makes it illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell a new textile article that contains regulated PFAS. Regulated PFAS means either of two things, and either one is enough on its own. One: PFAS a manufacturer intentionally added and that have a functional or technical effect in the product. Two: PFAS present at or above a total organic fluorine threshold of 100 parts per million, dropping to 50 parts per million on January 1, 2027. So a garment can be caught on the intentional-addition route even below the threshold. Outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions is exempt until January 1, 2028, and in the interim it has to carry a "Made with PFAS chemicals" disclosure.4 That is one case where a label tells you directly. It also covers a class of garment fight shorts are not in.
What a PFAS claim on fight shorts actually proves
People ask me straight out whether the big-name fight brands' shorts contain PFAS. I won't answer a question I can't back with data, and neither should anyone else. What I can say is narrow and factual: as of writing I am not aware of any major fight brand publishing PFAS test results or a PFAS-free certification for its shorts. That's not an accusation. It means the information is not disclosed, and a buyer is left to assume against a category default of finished synthetic fabric.
So the practical skill is grading the claims that do exist. This is the ladder, weakest to strongest.
| What you are looking at | What it proves | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| No mention of PFAS or finishes | Nothing either way | The default for performance synthetics is a finished fabric |
| "Clean," "non-toxic," or "safe" marketing language | Nothing. None of these terms is defined for textiles | That any specific chemistry was excluded |
| Water-resistant, stain-resistant, or DWR claim | The garment was finished for a property that fluorinated chemistry is the standard way to deliver | That the finish used was fluorinated, since silicone and hydrocarbon alternatives exist |
| "PFAS-free" with nothing behind it | That the brand is willing to make the claim in writing | That anything was tested, or which chemistries were considered |
| "Made with PFAS chemicals" disclosure | PFAS are present. This is the one label that answers directly | Anything about garments outside the severe-wet-conditions class |
| Third-party total organic fluorine screen | A method, not a verdict. It measures organic fluorine in the units tested, and a non-detect means none above the detection limit | Which PFAS, at what level, or whether a detection is PFAS at all. It is an indicator, not an identification |
| Published speciation testing | Whether the compounds on the method's analyte list were detected in the units tested. The strongest published evidence commonly available to a buyer | Anything about PFAS outside that analyte list, or about an untested production run |
| No finish applied, stated as a spec | The property was never bought, so the chemistry was never applied | It is a construction claim, not a certification |
That last row is where we sit, and I'd rather be straight about its shape than dress it up. It is a statement about how the shorts are built, which we can document from the tech pack and the finishing steps we specify. It is not a lab result and it is not independently verified.
First drop. 500 units. Late 2026.
Access before the public.
The gear you already own
Everyone who asks me this already owns a drawer of gear, and mine is no different. Two things are true about a treated garment, and neither one is what most people assume.
Washing removes some of it. In fabrics coated with side-chain fluorinated polymer DWR, washing lowers perfluoroalkyl acid concentrations and carries some of the volatile PFAS out of the textile. That's not a cleanup, it's a transfer. What leaves the fabric goes into the wastewater. And it runs against the second finding: aging of that same coated fabric increases PFAA concentrations and forms compounds that were not there before.7
So washing doesn't solve a treated garment. And on coated fabric, a clean result on a new piece doesn't describe that piece after two years of aging. None of that measures what reaches skin, and no study ranks garments by contact time. What follows is our precautionary reasoning rather than a finding: replace by contact time instead of scrubbing. Which pieces those are, and why the liner comes first, is argued in full on the chemical-inventory post.
How to avoid PFAS in clothing
Four moves, in rough order of how much they do for you.
- Treat water-resistant, stain-resistant, and DWR claims as a warning flag. Any garment, any fiber. Every product in the one study that sampled on that claim tested positive, and no unmarketed comparison group was tested. Read it as a flag rather than a prediction.5
- Grade a PFAS-free statement against the ladder above before you trust it. AB 1817 bans regulated PFAS in new textile articles. It does not require anyone to advertise compliance, so the absence of a claim tells you nothing on its own.
- Ask what was applied, not just what it is made of. Fiber is not protection. Finishing is the step where PFAS usually enter, and in the one study that compared them, the 100 percent cotton items carried more PFAS than the blends.
- Work through what you own by contact time rather than replacing everything. A free checklist scores each piece of your current kit from its own label, and it covers the rest of the chemical picture that this page does not.
Where that leaves fight shorts
We apply no water-repellent or stain-repellent finish to either short, which means the chemistry that carries PFAS into a garment as a finish was never applied. That is a construction statement rather than a test result, and it is a statement about finishes, not about every input a garment passes through. You can read the full material breakdown, see how fabric connects to microplastics and hormones in the broader case against polyester, or look at the shorts directly, and how to choose BJJ and MMA shorts covers inseam, pockets, and fabric by sport.
Testing is the stronger evidence, and I'd rather a buyer had it. What we can offer sits earlier than a lab: a decision made before the garment exists. We chose not to apply the finish, instead of asking afterward how much of it came off.