Cotton, linen, hemp
Fibre-reactive dye. Cold water, add salt, fix with soda ash. The easiest win and the one to start with.
First principles / Colour panel
The colour is the merch.
We don't sell you a shirt. This page gives you the exact purple and the ways to put it on anything you already own, in any language, from any culture: the swatches speak for themselves. An op-shop jumper and a packet of dye beat a catalogue every time.
The purples
Point at one. That's the whole conversation.
These are pulled live from this site's own stylesheet, so they can never drift from the real thing. Tap a swatch to copy its code. Take the printed panel to any paint counter, dye shop or printer and point: colour needs no translation.
Codes are exact for screens; the CMYK line is an approximate conversion for print, so ask your printer to match the hex. Dye on fabric always lands a little different to glass: that's character, not failure. We name no colour-brand matches we haven't checked, so match by eye, panel in hand.
Materials
Put it on anything.
Match the dye to the fibre and almost nothing else matters. No brands, no affiliate links: any dye shop or hardware store carries these, and your op-shop already owns the greenest garment on Earth.
Wool, silk
Acid dye. Hot water plus plain white vinegar. Gentle stirring or the wool felts.
Polyester, synthetics
Disperse dye at a near-boil, in a pot you never cook in again. Honestly hard: paint or print these instead.
Paint and print
Fabric paint, screen ink, brush or stencil. Works on any fibre, caps, shoes, signs. Heat-set with an iron.
Thread and yarn
Embroidery over a logo you're retiring, purple stitching on anything. Slowest, and the one people keep forever.
The blank
Op-shops, your own cupboard, a mate's discards. The garment already exists; you're only bringing the colour.
One dye job
Six pictures, no reading required.
The cotton version, since that's the easy one. Follow your dye packet where it disagrees with us: the packet knows its own chemistry.
1
Find it. Op-shop, cupboard, mate.
2
Wash it. No softener.
3
Mix dye, salt, warm water.
4
Soak and stir, 30 to 60 minutes.
5
Rinse cold until the water runs clear.
6
Wear it. Send us a photo.
Gloves on, windows open, and one dedicated pot.
Dye stains skin for days and benches forever. Any pot that meets disperse dye is a dye pot for life, never a dinner pot again. Kids love this job: gloves on them too.
Why first principles
No stock, no landfill, no gatekeeper.
A colour can't sell out, can't sit in a warehouse, and can't be discontinued. Every dyed garment is one less printed one, made in your kitchen, in your size, already broken in. And it means nobody needs our store's permission to wear the movement: the panel is public property, like the Twinkle format. If you make something good, the gear store wants your photo and your method, not your money.