Kaiser, a Turkish laundry solutions provider, and DyStar, a German chemical supplier, collaborated on an innovation that achieves the desired lived-in look while leaving a lower environmental imprint.

"Advanced Used Look" provides the denim industry with a solution for accurate fades without all of the water and chemicals commonly associated with traditional dye and wash techniques. The technique is waterless and devoid of potassium permanganate, a dangerous chemical connected to respiratory disorders such as byssinosis and silicosis.

According to the firms, the approach delivers improved fastness—or ease of fading—as well as outstanding repeatability and levelness for scale when compared to standard garment dyeing and washing. It can also produce a faded appearance on difficult deeper hues.

The denim industry is seeking more ecologically friendly garment fading options. Officina +39 just released Aqualess Fade as part of its Aqualess Mission, a collection of technologies that allows garment laundry procedures to utilize 75 percent less water. Without the use of water or high temperatures, the method replicates the bleaching action of chlorine on fabrics. Soorty, a vertically integrated denim maker, introduced Zero Stone in November, a stonewashing technology that delivers vintage-inspired wash effects without the use of pumice stones, which have long been thought to be harmful to the environment.

DyStar is a Bluesign system partner responsible for the Cadira Denim System, a dyeing method that avoids the usage of hydrosulphite, which causes salt accumulation during the denim dyeing process. The salt produced by typical dyeing procedures can enter natural water supplies and destroy the ecology. DyStar uses the Cadira Denim System to replace hydrosulphite with their organic reducing agent Sera Con C-RDA and combines it with DyStar Indigo Vat 40% Solution to generate the "cleanest indigo on the market."

Kaiser has recently introduced important developments, such as its Lava Con DOZ, an ozone activator that assists denim in achieving a brilliant bleaching look that ozone cannot produce on its own.