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Product Spotlight: PFD Fleece

For those unfamiliar with this option, PFD products are designed to be fully customizable so that our clients can dye the garments to any color they like. This option is often used for dying the product to match a Pantone a client is working within but is quite popular and easy to use in any tie-dye applications, garment-dyes, over-dyes, dip-dyes, ice-dyes, etc.

 

The Fabric 
PFD fabric is the version of our cotton before it is dyed. Once our fabric is knitted and milled and is ready for wet-processing, our mill custom treats the PFD (prepared for dye) fabric with hydrogen peroxide, caustic soda, and formic acid - and that's it. Hydrogen Peroxide is an environmentally compatible bleaching chemical that has been used in dyeing mills for decades.

Hydrogen peroxide doesn’t break down cellulosic fibers, thus reducing by-product waste. In a bleaching routine, hydrogen peroxide brightens and provides brightness stabilization; often used in the last stage of beaching. Caustic soda and formic acid allow for pH balance and dye fixation. All Original Favorites fleece is treated this way prior to fabric dyeing to achieve the quality of hue and chroma retention that you see in our current products. So when you dye our garments your color choices can feature the same uniform saturation that you see in our products, assuming the dye-house you are working with executes their dying process well. 

 

The Garment
Original Favorites PFD fleece garments are sewn with 100% organic cotton thread to allow for an even and uniform dye. This is a significant factor when considering a blank garment for dyeing. Threads made of synthetic material (polyester, nylon, etc.) are chemically pigmented when they are produced and do not absorb color at any other stage in production. This can be problematic if someone attempts to dye a garment with synthetic thread, as that synthetic thread may not absorb the dye and could remain in the initial color.
Additionally, our PFD products have built-in shrinkage tolerance to account for shrinkage during the at-home dye process; although some small amount of shrinkage (up to 3%) is still likely to occur depending on the designer’s dye process. Cotton is a natural fiber and all cotton does expand and contract in some way when they come into contact with water, even if the garments are pre-shrunk like ours. If a company claims 0% shrinkage because a product is "pre-shrunk" that should be concerning because all cotton products will shrink a small amount, initially.
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