Black Algae Dyed T Shirt

Made with seaweed from Icelandic fjords, and the world’s first black algae dye.

£95
Size

Model is 5ft 11 / 180cm with a 38 inch / 97cm chest, and wears size Medium.

  • Dye made from algae waste
  • Built with seaweed from Icelandic fjords
  • Garment dyed for softness

The colour black is everywhere. From our phones to our cars to the ink in our pens. But black has a dark side. Every black thing you own is likely to contain carbon black – a pigment derived from petroleum. The way carbon black is made isn’t sustainable. Vast tracts of land called tar sands are stripped of all life and vegetation to extract the heavy petroleum, while the production process creates significant greenhouse gases.

So we’re on a search for the new black. And our aim is to reinvent the way in which the colour itself is made using the world’s first dye made from black algae.

Over 5 years of R&D have gone into creating the first ever black algae dye. And we spent more than 6 months finding the perfect blend of materials to combine it with. The Black Algae T Shirt is made from organic cotton, pulped eucalyptus, and brown algae – a type of seaweed harvested from Iceland’s North Atlantic fjords.

Technical Details

Material made in Portugal: 80% organic cotton, 20% SeaCell
T shirt garment dyed with black algae dye
Soft and breathable
T shirt weighs 175 grams
Material weighs 150g/m2
Machine wash inside out at 30°C
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Turning algae into dye took 5 years of R&D

To create a black algae dye, each individual particle in the pigment needs to be microscopically small, otherwise the t shirt’s fibres won’t absorb them. So Living Ink have spent 5 years in R&D working on how to reduce the size of the black algae particles to an average of 1 micron. This breakthrough creates a sustainable alternative to dyeing clothing using traditional carbon-black based dyes, and with a clear pathway for scaling up.

Our intensive R&D process didn't stop with the dye

We carried out 6 months of lab tests to successfully dye our t shirt, trying different fabrics, dyeing temperatures, and pigment concentrations, before finding the perfect combination.

Size + Fit

The Black Algae T Shirt is designed with a regular fit.

Size XS S M L XL XXL XXXL
Fits chest 83 - 90 91 - 98 99 - 106 107 - 114 115 - 122 123 - 130 131 - 138
Fits waist 71 - 76 76 - 81 81 - 86 86 - 91 91 - 96 96 - 101 102 - 107
Size XS S M L XL XXL XXXL
Fits chest 33 - 36 36 - 39 39 - 42 42 - 45 45 - 48 48 - 51 51 - 54
Fits waist 28 - 30 30 - 32 32 - 34 34 - 36 36 - 38 38 - 40 40 - 42