State-of-the-Art Dyeing: The Making of a Tee

At BELLA+CANVAS, we pride ourselves in our innovation and differentiation. One way we do this is through our state-of-the-art dyeing practices. We visited our dye house in Los Angeles to see all the amazing ways we  , and still create the best apparel in the industry.

Color Development

We have a process that allows us to achieve color consistency across literally tens of millions of units.  In the design process, we come up with a variety of sophisticated on-trend colors. Digital swatches of our developing colors are sent to the lab where the color is brought to life on actual fabric.

Most dye houses are behind on technology advances and still send physical swatches to their dye houses. This means it’s a human eye judging if one shade of blue is different than another, leaving room for error. Our dye house has an exact way to measure our digital swatches due to a color accreditation certification. Even as we make millions of units, no matter where it’s dyed or when it’s dyed, True Royal will always be True Royal and Black Heather will always be Black Heather. Through our cloud-based software, we assure a supplier’s ability to accurately develop and execute color over the life of a product for global brands and retailers.

Quality of Dyes

Not all dyes are created equal. The quality of dyes used affects color fastness which basically means how fabric fades after wash and wear, and how fabric performs when printed.  The quality also affects the finished result of the garment. For example, if you wash your garment and it bleeds over onto your white t-shirt, that’s a wash-fastness issue.

Our primary dye house is bluesign® certified and was the first dye house in the USA to use only bluesign® approved dyes, chemicals, and softeners, signifying our commitment to minimize the use of hazardous chemicals and environmentally harmful substances in our fabrics.

The Dyeing Process

Color consistency is created by eliminating all variables during the fabric dyeing process. We use identical machines and a completely automated process to achieve ultimate color consistency.

Drying and Finishing

Our shrink drying process is something you won’t find anywhere else in the industry. We’re the only manufacturer to use open width shrink drying chambers, allowing us to make side seam tees that won’t twist or shrink after being washed.  The shrink dryer is shrinking, pre-shrinking and drying the fabric at the same time. It also gets rid of the torque which is when a shirt twists after wash. This is a big problem with tubular tees and side-seamed tees that don’t use these shrink drying chambers. You won’t see torque in BELLA+CANVAS tees.

The shrink dryers we use are quite a financial investment, so most manufacturers skip this step. This is why high shrinkage and the twisting of garments after wash-and-wear is such a common issue with t-shirts. Our shrinkage is less than 5% in length and width, much less than industry standard.

Quality Assurance

Our state-of-the-art dyeing process is just one of the many ways we work on protecting the environment while still giving our customers the best quality products.

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