Here's the uncomfortable truth about buying clothes: you are taking somebody's word for it.
A hangtag says 100% organic cotton. A product page says non toxic. A brand says its fabric is clean and safe and better for you. Almost none of it is ever independently measured, and almost nobody asks. The apparel industry runs on claims, and claims are cheap.
So in August we sent three of our shorts to a laboratory and paid to find out whether ours hold up.
Why we did this when we are already certified
We hold the certifications. Our cotton is GOTS certified organic. Our dyes are OEKO TEX Standard 100 low impact. The merino in the women's Flow Set is certified to the Responsible Wool Standard. Those are real audits by real third parties, and they cover things we could never prove on our own: how the cotton was farmed, what chemistry was allowed into the dyehouse, how the sheep were treated.
But a certification audits a system. It does not measure the garment in your hands.
That gap bothered us. You can do everything right on paper, work only with certified mills, specify natural fiber down to the care label, and still not truly know what came out the other end until somebody puts it under an instrument. Nobody was going to do that for us. There is no regulator checking. There is no independent body testing finished activewear and publishing the results. If we wanted to actually know, we had to go pay for it.
So we did. Eurofins, one of the largest independent testing networks in the world, at their lab in Norwood, Massachusetts. Not our factory's lab. Not a certification body with a badge to sell. We pulled three Quad Shorts off production stock, shipped them out, and asked for the things people actually worry about: PFAS, phthalates, BPA, glyphosate. Then we asked them to pull the fabric apart and tell us what it was really made of.
It cost thousands of dollars. For a brand our size that is real money, and we spent it anyway, for one reason. This is clothing you sweat in for hours a day, right against your skin. It is supposed to be the healthy choice. If it was not, we would want to know before you did.
Everything came back clean. Here is all of it.
The results
Lab: Eurofins MTS Consumer Product Testing US, LLC. Norwood, MA
Test report no.: 202608064
Report date: September 10, 2026
Samples received: August 13, 2026
Testing period: August 17 to September 10, 2026
Tested: Men's Quad Short, black. One Medium, two Small, pulled from production
Overall rating: Pass / Satisfactory
| Test | What was tested | Result | Limit applied | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PFAS, total fluorine | Main fabric, outer (organic cotton shell) | Not detected, down to 10 mg/kg | 100 mg/kg | ASTM D7359-23 (CIC), BS EN 14582-2016 |
| PFAS, total fluorine | Main fabric, inner (merino liner) | Not detected, down to 10 mg/kg | 100 mg/kg | ASTM D7359-23 (CIC), BS EN 14582-2016 |
| PFAS, total organic fluorine | Both fabric layers | Not detected | 100 mg/kg | Calculated from total and inorganic fluorine |
| Phthalates: DBP, BBP, DEHP, DIDP, DINP, DnHP | Elastic waistband | Under 0.005% each and in total | 0.1% each (CA Prop 65) | Solvent extraction, GC-MS |
| Bisphenol A, free and releasable | Garment material | Under 50 ppm, below reporting limit | Reporting limit 50 ppm | GC-MS, extraction and derivatization |
| Glyphosate | Garment material | Under 0.1 mg/kg, below reporting limit | Reporting limit 0.1 mg/kg | LC-MS/MS, FMOC derivatization |
| AMPA, glyphosate breakdown product | Garment material | Under 0.05 mg/kg, below reporting limit | Reporting limit 0.05 mg/kg | LC-MS/MS, FMOC derivatization |
| Glufosinate | Garment material | Under 0.05 mg/kg, below reporting limit | Reporting limit 0.05 mg/kg | LC-MS/MS, FMOC derivatization |
| Fiber content | Shell and lining | Shell 100% cotton. Lining 100% wool | Zero tolerance, single fiber | AATCC 20A |
No PFAS. Neither layer.
PFAS is a class of thousands of compounds, so nobody chases them one at a time. You test for fluorine, the element every single PFAS compound is built around. No fluorine in the fabric means no PFAS in the fabric.
Eurofins ran it on both layers of the short, the organic cotton shell and the merino liner, and found none. Not a low number. Nothing detected at all, down to a floor of 10 mg/kg. The threshold most textile standards apply is 100 mg/kg.
The one thing worth saying plainly, because we would rather say it than have you wonder: a lab measures down to a floor, not to infinity. Ours was 10 mg/kg, and that number gets published next to the result every time. A result without a detection limit next to it is not really a result.
This matters more than it sounds. PFAS gets into clothing through water repellent and stain resistant finishes, which is why we have never put one on anything we make. The merino liner handles odor and temperature because that is what the fiber does. Nothing needed to be sprayed on. The test is the proof, but the design decision came first.
The fabric is exactly what the label says
This is the result we did not expect to care about as much as we do.
Fiber content on a clothing tag is a claim. Somebody typed it. The only way to verify it is for a laboratory to separate the fibers and weigh them, which is a real test with a real method, AATCC 20A, and almost nobody in this industry pays for it.
We asked for it at zero tolerance, the strictest setting there is for a single fiber claim.
Shell: 100% cotton. Lining: 100% wool. Not 97%. Not mostly. No trace of synthetic hiding in either layer.
Eurofins also noted, unprompted, that the average diameter and fiber size distribution of the wool sat within the range normally found in merino. We did not ask for that. They volunteered it.
Composition is the single most misrepresented number in activewear. A garment sold as organic cotton is routinely a blend. This is an independent lab confirming, at zero tolerance, that ours is not.
Phthalates, BPA and glyphosate
Three things people ask us about, and three reasons they were on the panel.
Phthalates are plasticizers, so they show up wherever there is an elastomer. In a short like this that is exactly one place, the elastic waistband, so that is where the test was run. All six phthalates regulated under California Proposition 65 came back under 0.005%, against a 0.1% limit.
BPA turns up in synthetic coatings and finishes. Below the reporting limit.
Glyphosate is the most heavily used herbicide in conventional cotton farming, which is a large part of why organic cotton matters in the first place. Glyphosate, its breakdown product AMPA, and glufosinate all came back below reporting limits. Organic certification says it should not be in there. The test says it is not.
We moved our own score, on the day it went public
We publish a Natural Fiber Score and we apply it to ourselves the same way we apply it to everyone else. One of its rules is that unpublished testing counts for nothing, because a test nobody can read is just another claim.
So for months, this panel scored us a zero. Today it is public, so our Chemical Safety pillar goes from 3 out of 5 to 4, and our total from 16 to 17.
Check it yourself
That is the entire reason this page exists, so please do.
- The report. Eurofins MTS Consumer Product Testing US, test report no. 202608064, dated September 10, 2026, issued to Wayve Company LLC.
- The methods. ASTM D7359 and BS EN 14582 are the standard combustion ion chromatography methods for total fluorine in textiles. AATCC 20A is the standard method for fiber identification. These are the real ones, not in house shortcuts.
- The detection limits. They are in the table above, next to every result. If a brand gives you a result without one, they have given you nothing.
- Ask anyone else for the same thing. Most will send you a certification instead of a test, or a test on fabric instead of a finished garment. That is the gap this page exists to close.
We spent the money because the alternative was asking you to take our word for it, and taking a brand's word for it is the exact thing we built Wayve to get away from.
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FAQ
Does the Wayve Quad Short contain PFAS?
No. Eurofins tested both fabric layers for total fluorine and total organic fluorine, the marker elements for the entire PFAS class, and detected none in either layer, down to a 10 mg/kg detection limit against a 100 mg/kg threshold. Test report no. 202608064, dated September 10, 2026.
Who did the testing?
Eurofins MTS Consumer Product Testing US, LLC, in Norwood, Massachusetts. One of the largest independent testing networks in the world. We are their client, not their owner, and we had no control over the result.
Why pay for testing when you already hold GOTS and OEKO TEX?
Because certifications audit a supply chain and a lab test measures a finished garment, and those are two different questions. Certification covers how the cotton was farmed and what chemistry was allowed into the dyehouse, continuously. A lab panel confirms what actually came out the other end. We wanted both.
Is the Quad Short really 100% organic cotton and 100% merino wool?
Yes, and it is independently verified. Eurofins confirmed fiber content under AATCC 20A at zero tolerance for a single fiber claim: 100% cotton in the shell, 100% wool in the lining. The lab additionally noted the wool's diameter and fiber size distribution fall within the range normally found in merino.
Was it tested for phthalates, BPA and glyphosate?
Yes. All six phthalates regulated under California Proposition 65 were tested on the elastic waistband and came back under 0.005% against a 0.1% limit. Free and releasable BPA came back below a 50 ppm reporting limit. Glyphosate, AMPA and glufosinate all came back below reporting limits.
Will you test again?
Yes, on future production, and we will publish those results here the same way. A single test is a snapshot. Publishing every one of them is the actual commitment.
What exactly was tested?
The Men's Quad Short in black. A 100% organic cotton shell at 290GSM brushed terry over a 100% merino wool liner at 165GSM jersey knit. One Medium and two Small units, pulled from production stock rather than made for the lab.