Every few months I get some version of the same question from a parent at pickup: "Is this stuff actually safe for my kid?" It's usually about a jacket, sometimes about food packaging, once about a yoga mat. The honest answer is that most of us are asking the wrong question, because we don't know what to ask about. PFAS is the thing worth asking about. 

PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals engineered to repel water, oil, and stains. They've been in raincoats, nonstick pans, and stain-resistant carpets for decades, because they work almost too well. PFAS bonds are some of the strongest in chemistry, which is exactly why they've earned the nickname "forever chemicals." They don't break down in the environment, and they build up in bodies over time. That's the part that matters for a kid's gear specifically: the same jacket a kid wears three winters in a row, hands-and-knees in the snow, sleeve in their mouth at the bus stop. 

Here's the part that used to surprise me before I started this company: a lot of "waterproof" kids' outerwear still uses PFAS-based durable water repellent (DWR) coatings, because it's the cheapest, most reliable way to make a shell bead water. It's not illegal, and it's not usually disclosed on the hang tag. You have to go looking for it. 

Every Hootie Hoo shell, starting with the Pinnakle 2L Insulated Jacket, uses a DWR coating with no intentionally added PFAS. That's not a marketing phrase. It's a spec our supplier signs off on, and it's the same standard across the line. The shell fabric on the Pinnakle Jacket is 100% recycled polyester, built through Bluesign-aligned manufacturing, which means the dye house and finishing process are independently checked for the chemicals that go into the fabric, not just the ones printed on the label. 

To be precise about it: no PFAS chemistry is intentionally added to that coating. We're not going to pretend we can test every molecule out of existence, because nobody honestly can, given how long these chemicals have been in the world. What we can control is what we choose to put in. 

None of that means the jacket performs worse. The Pinnakle Jacket is still rated waterproof to 20,000mm, genuinely built for a full day in wet snow, not just a walk to the car. No added PFAS doesn't mean less waterproof. It means we found a coating that does the job without the forever-chemical tradeoff. 

I don't love writing sustainability copy that sounds like a hang tag. So here's the plain version: we made a choice that costs us more per yard of fabric and doesn't show up as a feature a kid notices. It shows up in what's not in the fabric. If you've ever stood in an aisle wondering whether "waterproof" and "safe" are the same claim, they're not always. On everything we make, we've made sure they are. 

Small habit worth building either way: check the small stuff too. Mittens get chewed on, dragged through snowbanks, and lost more than anything else in a kid's closet. Our Bearclaw Mittens get the same no-added-PFAS treatment as the jackets, not just the pieces that make the marketing photo. 

Claire 

Mom of Two and Co-founder of Hootie Hoo