How to Take Care of Your Favorite Indigo Clothing?

We’re a little too obsessed with Indigo. It’s the king of blues, especially when it comes to indigenous printing techniques like daabu, bagru, and hand block print. It has been around for centuries now and a color of choice for many royal occasions. Most indigo used in the past was plant based, not any longer though. Making natural indigo dyes is a labor intensive process and takes hundreds of man hours and years of skill to get it right. Hence, natural indigo has been replaced with chemically produced indigo dye at most places, with only a few families/villages pursuing the traditional art of indigo making in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh. And, even fewer designers and companies have retained plant-based indigo in their manufacturing as it adds to cost and has lower yield. At Pinklay, we're fortunate to be able to continue using natural dyes in our daabu printing process as we run smaller production batches and our love affair with handcrafts of India is one to last!

Indigo is beautiful...but it needs to be treated with care and love, while making and wearing, both. 

Indigo is beautiful…but it needs to be treated with care and love, while making and wearing, both. It’s common for indigo dyes to lose color, less so for natural dyes, but not completely avoidable. At Pinklay, our fabrics are washed several times across the process of dyeing and printing to minimize fading. Yet, it may still loose color in the first few washes. But, worry not, by following a few simple steps, you will be able to enjoy this fabulous garment for a long time.

1. Wash your indigo-dyed garments in cold water, separately from other items, using a mild detergent.
2. Do not soak the garment for a long time. Do not rub it.
3. You may notice blue running out into the water - this is normal and will stop after a few washes.
4. We recommend hang drying. Avoid direct sunlight, this can cause excessive fading.
5. Indigo garments fade overtime, it’s characteristic for the color and only adds to its charm. After all, we all love our faded denims, don’t we?