Water-based ink

We use water-based ink. Not plastisol. The print becomes part of the cloth instead of sitting on top of it. After fifty washes you cannot feel the print under your fingers.

This is one of the brand's load-bearing decisions. It costs us more per garment, takes the production partner longer to cure, and limits a few of the trick effects you sometimes see in cheap printing. We accepted every one of those trade-offs because the alternative is a print that sheds microplastics every time the garment goes through the wash.

What plastisol is

The vast majority of printed clothing on the market uses plastisol — a PVC-based ink with phthalate plasticisers. It sits on top of the cloth as a thin plastic layer. New plastisol prints are vivid and easy to make, which is why they dominate cheap printing. Old plastisol prints crack, peel, fade, and eventually flake off into your washing machine and out into the water system.

If you have ever owned a printed t-shirt and felt the print as a stiff patch on the front of the cloth, that is plastisol. If you have ever pulled an old printed garment out of a drawer and seen the print is now half its original size and looks like a road map of cracks, that is plastisol ageing.

What water-based ink is

Pigment, water, and a small amount of acrylic binder. The dye penetrates the cotton fibres rather than sitting on top of them. The print becomes part of the cloth — you cannot feel where it is when you run your hand over it. The colours are softer and slightly more muted than plastisol, which we consider a feature.

The print does not crack, because there is no plastic layer to crack. It does not peel. It softens with the cloth over time, in step with everything else.

The trade-offs we accepted

Water-based ink costs about thirty percent more to print, per garment. It cures slower, which means our production partner ships our orders a couple of days later than they could otherwise. The colour range is slightly narrower than plastisol — we cannot do certain neon shades, and very dark prints on very light cloth need extra care.

We accepted all of that. The brand is built around clothes that last and clothes that do not contribute to the microplastic problem. Plastisol fails on both. Water-based wins both.

What it means in practice

The graphic on the back of a drop hoodie will look slightly less aggressively saturated than what you might expect from a high-street brand. That is the point. It will also still be on the garment, soft and intact, in 2032. That is also the point.

You should not be able to feel where the print is.