Fabric Dye

Shirtseed’s garments are undyed and unbleached when they are initially manufactured. Dyeing garments in China is difficult to justify. Certain portions of their population don’t have easy access to clean drinking water and many of the rivers are polluted. Dyeing fabric uses a lot of water. Our solution has been to experiment locally with natural dyes and “Low Impact” dyes. Hands-on experience has given us excellent insight into the actual amount of water and energy that is necessary dye clothing.

Shirtseed hand dyed t-shirts will only become available to local Vancouver retailers in fall 2007 and will not be sold online.

Natural Dye

While natural dye is enjoyable to work with as an art form and satisfying to use because it is created from natural properties like wood and insects, there are some drawbacks. Not all natural dyes have what one might consider less of an impact on the environment. Using natural dye can be highly energy inefficient. The fabric must be washed, prepared two to three times in mordant baths (each time rinsed), dyed and then finally washed again. The water consumption is very high. Furthermore the water must be kept at temperatures just shy of boiling through each separate bath which causes further energy consumption.

Procion MX

Procion MX is a synthetic, fibre reactive, cold water dye. Many Procion MX dyes contain no metal ions, but some do; Procion Turquoise MX-G contains copper. Shirtseed restricts the use of Procion MX dyesto those that are free of heavy metals.