Ep 69: How Denim Gets Its Blue with Paul Cowell

Paul Cowell taught Andrew a great deal of what he knows about indigo.

In Episode 69, Andrew sits down with Paul Cowell, whose career has moved through ICI, BASF, DyStar, BluConnection, and Archroma. His work sits at the intersection of chemistry, denim processing, mills, brands, and the commercial reality of making innovation work at scale.

The conversation begins with chemistry. How synthetic dye development shaped modern textiles. How indigo works. Why pre-reduced indigo changed denim dyeing. And why the fact that most synthetic indigo still comes from China should concern anyone who depends on blue jeans.

From there, they get into the strange logic of denim itself. A dye with poor affinity for cotton. A process built around reduction, oxidation, dipping, skying, washing down, and removing much of what was just put on. Inefficient, complicated, and still one of the most beloved systems in apparel.

They also talk about bioengineered indigo, the real barriers to cleaner chemistry, and why sustainability in textiles is never just about one product or one claim. It is about clean chemistry, efficient manufacturing, durability, regulation, and whether the industry is willing to pay for better systems.

There is a bigger question underneath it all: what happens when the future of fashion depends not only on fiber, fabric, and design, but on the chemistry most consumers never see? This episode is really about indigo, and the complicated system built around making denim blue.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Paul Cowell
Global Textile Chemistry & Marketing Strategist, Paul Cowell Consultancy
LinkedIn

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Transcript

Andrew 0:00

If you value these conversations, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more than you think. Today's guest is someone I've respected for a long time, Paul Cowell. This conversation is kind of personal for me because Paul was one of the people who helped educate me. Around 10 or 15 years ago, when I was teaching denim classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Paul was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. He helped me better understand indigo chemistry and provided valuable technical information and data that helped shape what I taught to my students for many years. I've always been grateful for that. I've kept his data all these years, and I'm very pleased to welcome him to Gene's Land today. I want to start this podcast by telling a story, and this story is very important in my life. When I was living in Hong Kong, I flew down to Singapore and I met Blue Connection, and my escort at Blue Connection was Paul Cowell, who's our guest today. And Paul did many things that I've always remembered and always appreciated and is lodged in my brain forever. The first thing he did, he took me to one of the best places for dinner I ever ate, which is the Newton Market. So for anyone who's in Singapore, don't be going to any fancy restaurants. Go to the Newton Market, have a couple of beers, and go with a friend, and have a great time. That's what Paul took me to. And I highly recommend that. The second thing is, Paul taught me a great portion of what I know about indigo. And I am forever grateful to the knowledge that I got from Paul. And I think it's one of the greatest gifts you can give people is to give them the gift of knowledge. So it's with great pleasure that I have Paul on this podcast. And I hope you enjoy meeting him as much as I did. Hi, Paul, and thank you for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Hey, Andrew. Hi. Thanks a lot. I remember that evening in Singapore. We had some great chili crab, and I think we had some great stingray as well. It was a fantastic night.

Andrew 2:04

Really, I never went back, and I was one of the things in my life that I'm sorry I never did.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

All right. Let's get into it. It's still there, Andrew. And whenever you want to, we can go back again. Don't you?

Andrew 2:14

Yeah, I bet it's still there. And in my new life, I try not to travel anymore. This is one of my big luxuries. I know it sounds crazy, but the biggest luxury I have is if I don't go anywhere. So we'll start from the beginning, which is always the best place, in that I find it fascinating that you studied as a youngster synthetic chemistry, and you're from Manchester, right? Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. But you you selected as a youngster to study synthetic chemistry. How did you come to that?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Well, it was a bit fortuitous, actually. I was super lucky. Uh I lived in North Manchester. I was born and raised in North Manchester. And actually, my dream was to go to university to studies from a doctor. And what happened was when I was 15 years old, I'd finished my exams and I got a week job and I started earning money. And I was earning some good money for a 15-year-old. And then when it came time to actually enroll in college, I didn't want a life without cash. I'd smelt the money. And I was very lucky because in those days, ICI had their headquarters for colours in Blakely, North Manchester. So I was the last cohort who actually went into ICI and they sent me on day release. So they they trained me as a chemist. At the same time, I was working as an experimental chemist, and I was synthesizing new reactive bats, which meant it was it was a double-edged sword. I didn't have the university life, I didn't have those friends that you make in university and Gulfwood life. But the great thing was I was an edding, uh, I was gaining experience, and I already had a job when I got my degree. So I was lucky, I didn't choose that path. But as soon as I entered into dye chemistry, I was fascinated by how you could create new molecules and what and what constituted different colours and what groups gave reactivity. So yeah, a bit lucky. Wasn't planned, but from then I never look back.

Andrew 4:13

Can you the audience doesn't, the majority of our audience does not know who ICI is, and the older people do. Do you want to just tell the listeners who was ICI and what impact ICI had on our world?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, so ICI stands for Imperial Chemical Industries. Uh it subsequently regrouped into Xeneca, which then became AstraZeneca in a different pharmaceutical direction. It became Dulux Paints. Uh, and then ICI sold their dye business to BASF, and that's another story. But but ICI really were fundamental in our business because ICI and Herkst, the German equivalent of ICI, really invented colour chemistry. And from colour chemistry was really where pharmaceuticals and agriculture came from. Because that synthetic chemistry started a whole new wave of science. So yeah, ICI, I don't know when they were founded, 1800s, I'm guessing, somewhere mid to late 1800s, the same time indigo was invented in BASF. But yeah, it was the main chemical industry of the UK, but it's still subsequently been broken up. But I was very proud to work there because my father also worked at ICI. And he always used to tell me it's a job for life.

Andrew 5:31

Um, ICI.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Exactly, right, exactly. But unfortunately, there's no jobs for life anymore in our industry. Um, but I've not done too bad, and I'm I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I had as a 16-year-old back in 1989 in ICI. It's amazing. So, what did your early work at ICI focus on? So I was I was very specific in the reactive dye synthesis group. Uh so reactive dyes are dyes for cotton, they form a Cobane bond, so very different to Indigo. So all of the T-shirts and polo shirts that have high wash fastness and are very bright, they tend to be reactive dyes. And I was working on a new range of molecular-engineered reactive dyes that could all perform in a certain way. So just to break that down very, very quickly, when you when you do any colour apart from denim, you tend to use a trichromat. You'll use a red, a yellow, and a blue to make most of the different shades. You blend those colours. But those three dyes have to behave the same in terms of affinity for the fibre, fixation and exhaustion. So I was there to manipulate the molecule to have different performance properties. And in my time, I'd say I probably invented around 2,000 new reactive dye molecules, or I created 2,000 new molecules, of which only three or four ever came to market, right? So that's that's the way the RD department worked sort of 35 years ago. You'd you'd be in the lab creating new molecules, testing them, uh, throwing them out and iterating on that process. Um, yeah. So reactive dice for cotton was my pretty much what I created in my 10 years whilst I was at ICR. And how did you end up in um Singapore? Yeah, that's another interesting story. Quite quickly I realized that there wasn't going to be an industry in the UK, unfortunately. I mean, this was 1989 to 1999. You realised that then? Well, I think it was clear that things were shifting. You know, it was ironic. We called, we caught the Asian suppliers non-traditional suppliers. And the selling uh method for ICI at the time was to say that, you know, our dyes are cleaner, our dyes are better performing, which isn't different from today. But the difference now is the Western dye stuff manufacturers are the non-traditional suppliers because all of the fabrication has now shifted to Asia. So, you know, it was relatively clear back in the day that the industry in Europe was starting to decline, declining faster in things like polos and t-shirts, uh, perhaps less in technical textiles and more functionality. And it was at that time, after 10 years in RD, I'd done what I'd liked and I wanted to start to learn marketing. And through that time, ICI had changed to Zeneca, BASF had bought Zeneca, and then when BASF actually merged with DISTAR in 2000, that's when I got the opportunity to start to move. So I spent three years in Germany first. Dicear was headquartered in Germany, and I was working on the colour palettes for Nike, for Puma, for Adidas, making their colour standards for each season. And then I got an opportunity to do some trials in a factory called Fountain Set in Guangzhou. And I went over there and I was a 26-year-old, I guess, at that time, and I did some trials and I fell in love with Asia. I absolutely adored the place. Um, I thought I'd won the lottery. You know, they were flying me overseas. I loved to travel. And when I got back from that trip, I told my boss, put me on the waiting list to relocate to Asia. And he said, There isn't a waiting list. You can move anytime you want. So I first moved to Hong Kong. I worked, I built the brand engagement team for DISTAR at that time uh in Hong Kong. And then I found the love of my life. Uh, she was a Singaporean, she also worked at DISTAR, and I tried everything I possibly could to get my boss to relocate me to Singapore, which he did. And uh, we got married two years later with the love of my life, and we we've been married now for 20 years. So that's how I ended up in Singapore.

Andrew 9:42

So, two questions for you there. What did your parents say about you wanting to leave England and going to Singapore? That must have or Asia. That must have been something, nice conversation.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Well, I think they knew I had the travel itch. They weren't surprised. Uh, they were a little bit concerned that I'd be out there on my own, but I'd been relatively independent. I mean, leaving leaving school and joining ICI at 16 years old, I was relatively self-sufficient. I'd already moved out of house, uh out of the house. Um, so they they were reluctant as you would be as a parent, but I think they they understood my itch and they fully supported. And they had a great time visiting me in Hong Kong and Singapore and all around Asia whenever whenever they came at Christmas time. So it it all worked out. But I guess as a parent, now I'm a parent of a 17-year-old daughter. I'd be a bit concerned if my daughter came home and said I'm moving halfway across the world.

Andrew 10:36

Yeah, if she came home and said, I want to move to Buenos Aires, I don't think you'd love her so much.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Well, I'd be a bit concerned, but I'd fully support because I know how my life changed. You know, moving out of your comfort zone, I think, is always important. And and my personal development really grew after I left the UK. You get exposed to so many different cultures and different types of cuisine, which I love. Um, so yeah, I'd be concerned, but I'd fully support her for sure.

Andrew 11:04

Second thing I wanted to ask you about as you worked for Dijk Star in Germany, can you tell the audience, because most people never get this chance, to explain that factory outside of Frankfurt? So there is this factory that is, I can't explain it, it's so big. Maybe public better than me.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah, let me explain. So that there was there's two real centers of uh importance in the, let's say, the colour industry in Germany. One is Herckst, which is in just outside of Frankfurt, uh, which is subsequently not manufacturing so much anymore. But I'm I'm guessing the one you're possibly referring to is Ludwigshaven, which is a little bit more in the south. That's actually owned by BASF. Yes, it was there. What is that? 20 miles of pipes or some crazy thing? It's phenomenal. It's a city, you know, uh it's it's a massive city. The sad thing is, you know, slowly BASF have been splitting that up, breaking it down, selling off parts. They used to have something called Vabunt, which means the beauty of Ludwigshaven was every business was supporting every other business. So the pipeline of raw materials was going left and right, all of the safety was integrated. Um, since they've broken that up and sold it, sold parts off, it doesn't have quite the same efficiency. And what's interesting to our discussion is BASF Ludwigshaven is where uh BASF used to create indigo. And of course, BASF stands for Bardishire Aniline Soda Fabric, and aniline and soda is what creates indigo, so that's where they came from. Um the sad thing is that they they closed that site down, I think, three or four years ago. Dys now no longer have uh synthesis in uh in Germany. Uh well, yeah, that site for BSF was phenomenal. It was a work of art. Yeah. And tell me an efficiency at its uh at its peak.

Andrew 12:58

Well, it scared me as a as a private citizen to go to something that big, if there was ever an explosion, I believe all of Frankfurt would have been gone.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Well, they had a lot of safety back in the day, and and like I said, they had they had a what I understand is a complete moat around the site. And if anything ever happened, this thing would flood the whole factory with with water. And of course, it was again it was a double-edged sword. There was a few so many people were employed by BASF uh in Ludwigs Haven. There was a it was a city manufacturing site, but a city of people built around it as well. So it was yeah, phenomenal phenomenal.

Andrew 13:37

And then you went to a company that made indigo.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

That's right, yeah.

Andrew 13:42

Tell me about that. That's where we met.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, so what happened in 2010? Dicear went bankrupt. And at that time, you know, a lot of amazing chemists and salespeople and marketing people had been working for 30 plus years or 25 plus years for DISTAR. And there was huge clauses if anybody was going to lead. Uh, we'd always had this idea of creating competition. There was at the time, there was only really two manufacturers of pre-reduced indigo. Only one, really, which was DISTAR. So we always knew that pre-reduced indigo was was a very important product for the denim industry. And there was a group of exceptional chemists and marketing people who, at the time when DIE Star went bankrupt, they became available. So at the, you know, there was a great leader, a guy called Peter Zinza with the denim team, Alex Bach, Andreas Mendel, uh, and myself, we all left Dijkstar when Dice went bankrupt. And we created a new company called Blue Connection. Uh, I what I was one of the supporters at the beginning, I wasn't the founder. Um, but yeah, we created a pre-reduction hydrogenation site here in Singapore, which was a bit rare because there are very few chemical manufacturing. But Singapore as a hub, especially for Southeast Asia and India, is a fantastic logistical place. And logistics are very, very important for pre-reduced indigo, which we might touch on later. So yeah, I had a great time. I worked there for three years. That's exactly where we met. Uh, we went for that great seafood, as we spoke about. And it was, you know, there were five people in the company. So you were procurement, you were marketing, you were uh RD, you were logistics. Everybody, it was all hands to the pump. It was a great learning time. It was stressful, of course, starting a new company. Uh, when you make pre-reduced indigo, you need uh a lot of cash to buy the raw material. It's huge volumes. Um, and I learned a lot there. I owe a lot to that team. And what was really interesting, I don't know if you remember, Andrew, when we first met, you suggested that I should go to Clarent and use my marketing skills to help Clarion. Now, at that time, I was 100% focused on Blue Connection, but ironically, that's exactly what happened. Because three years later, I joined Clarion, which six months later then became my chroma, and I was basically in charge of the sort of brand engagement, and then subsequently the marketing. So again, it's uh some of those seeds that you planted back in the day came to fruition.

Andrew 16:15

That's crazy. I don't remember. I don't remember that. I can't I can't even imagine suggesting that to you because you seem so happy in Blue Connection. But before we go further, again, for my audience, can you explain pre-reduced indigo?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, indigo is uh probably the most famous dye stuff in the world. There's capacity for about 100 to 120,000 tons of powder. And if indigo was invented today, it would never pass through innovation. It's a terrible dye. It has zero affinity for cotton. You have to use very specific machinery. You can't really exhaust it, which is the you know the main dye of cotton. But the one thing that's beautiful about indigo is it gets brighter as you wash it. It's one of the only dyes in the world that gets brighter as you wash it, and it becomes customizable, which we all know is why we love we love indigo. The problem with indigo is it's basically a pigment. So when it's in its, let's say, its most stable form in in the atmosphere, it's a blue powder. It has zero solubility, so you can't dissolve it in water. And if you can't dissolve it in water, it has no affinity for cotton because it just doesn't want to be attracted to the cotton. What's amazing about indigo is if you add a reducing agent, you convert it into a different molecule, which is soluble. It's called the Leukoform. It's actually yellow, it's not blue anymore. That's soluble, and that soluble form has a little bit more affinity for cotton. So you you add a reducing agent, it's called, to convert it from indigo powder to leuko indigo uh solution. And it's that solution that then has affinity for the cotton. And that's why you dip it and sky it. You paint the indigo on layer by layer, uh maybe over 10 to 12 boxes. And by doing that, you have this beautiful ring-dyed effect where you have multiple layers of the Leuco indigo, which then oxidizes on the surface of the cotton. When it oxidizes, it becomes locked inside the cotton. So that's what gives it its semi-fastness, let's say, because it's not 100% fast. But the fact that it's on the surface means you can have all these beautiful washdown effects and all these laser effects and uh whiskers, etc. etc. So yeah, it's it's quite unique in terms of application.

Andrew 18:32

But Blue Connection was in the business of manufacturing liquid indigo. And that's right. And the business before liquid indigo was powder indigo, which still many people still use.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, so there's two ways you can reduce indigo. You can reduce it in the factory just before you use it, which is what we call a stocklap. And 60%, around 60% of the world, 60 to 65%, still use powder from China. And they use caustic and sodium hydrosulfite to do the reduction in the factory. Which is, by the way, which is filthy, right? It's a filthy brand. Well, it's so it is it's so sodium hydrosulfite is not a very nice chemical. It's uh very strong reducing agent, uh, and caustic is very corrosive, it's pH 12 plus. Um, and it also introduces a lot of sulfites and sulfates that end up in the wastewater. Now, the other way you can do it is DI Starv, New Connection, and Archroma, they have a catalyzed hydrogenation. So, what they do is they buy the same powder from China, and instead of using caustic and hydrosulfite, they use hydrogen, catalyst, and pressure to make the same pre-reduced indigo. And then they ship it to the customer. So the customer doesn't have to do make their stock bath. Now the difference is um, because there's wait when you use caustic and hydrosulfite, you add a lot of salts into your stockpile. Because whenever you add an acid and a base, you create salt plus water. Um, that means that powdered indigo behaves a little bit different than pre-reduced indigo. You still need caustic and hydros in the factory to maintain your dipping and skying and maintain the reduction there. But the bulk of the reduction, taking the powder to a soluble farm, is now done with uh clean hydrogen and uh and catalyzed reaction. Uh so about 35% of the world is pre-reduced. Usually the export-oriented mills tend to use pre-reduced indigo, and the other 60 to 65% are still using powder. The interesting thing is we all still use the powder from the three or four Chinese manufacturers. There's only Chinese manufacturers of indigo. 90% of the indigo in the world, whether it's pre-reduced or powder, is coming from at least three to four Chinese suppliers up in inner Mongolia. And I heard the salt as well.

Andrew 20:54

That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So for those that missed that, I'll say it again. Paul said 90% of the indigo comes from China. So without China, we got a big problem.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

No, the oligopoly that exists in China has been a concern for many years, especially to some of the key denim brands. You know, the two biggest products that a denim brand needs is cotton and indigo. And indigo's sort of been overlooked because it was always available. But yeah, the geopolitics around indigo are quite worrying. And as we mentioned earlier, the closure of the Ludwigshaven manufacturing in Germany means that all indigo, 90% of synthetic indigo powder, is now created in Mongolia. And if there are tariffs, if there are any geopolitical issues, indigo is no longer available.

Andrew 21:46

So having worked in both conventional dyes like reactive and other kinds of colored dyes and indigo, what did you notice the difference in the indigo industry compared to the other chemicals? A lot.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Okay, there's the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? I mean, the great thing about Indigo. You want to hear all three? Sure. The great thing about Indigo is that the denim community is phenomenal. You know, something through Kingpins, as you know, Andrew, that you, you know, the people, the community that you can bring together, whether it's from a chemical to a to a mill, uh a weaver, a laundry, it's phenomenal. It's so close. There's a lot of support, there's a lot of uh uh, yeah, there's a lot of great, amazing people. That doesn't tend to happen in the more conventional industry. It's much more fragmented, much more isolated. So I love the community that surrounds denim manufacture. Uh the crazy thing is, you know, the fact that we put on two or three percent of Indio, then we wash most of it off. This is still a bit crazy uh for fashion and style. You know, the idea that you can have a 2% rigid garment ready for makeup is fantastic in terms of inventory. And I think one of the issues over the last two or three years is they didn't have to sell the stock off. So a lot of the conventional um sportswear, athletic or fashion, you know, their t-shirts in the wrong shade had to be sold off at a discount uh because they had too much inventory. It looks like what I saw from the industry is that the denim uh brands they could hold on to that in, or they could make the mill hold onto the inventory because it was the same deni. The wash could happen later. And that really impacted the whole denim manufacturing industry. You know, industry was down 50, 40, 50, 60 percent over the last sort of 24 months. I think and I hope it's starting to refill that inventory is emptied and refilled. So the good is the the later market, the community, the bad is the fact that it has um you need dedicated machinery. You know, your minimum amount you can make is probably 3,000 meters, which is 3,000 pairs of jeans. There's no real way to garment, dye, denim because of the construction. Uh and the ugly, I would say, is still the reduction need. So the caustic and the hydros that's needed in the factory. And as I mentioned, the in the inefficiency of washing off a lot of the dye that you've spent a lot of time putting on. This is a bit of a crazy thing in our industry, but it's this is the aesthetics of denim as well. This is what makes it such a unique product. What about bioengineered indigo? Yeah, it's interesting, right? So going back to the oligopoly, the bioen engineered indigo now has an opportunity of having indigo outside of China. Of course, if a Chinese company develops bioindigo and it's in China, that doesn't solve that problem. The challenge I see is cost. Um, you know, if we go back to the pre-reduced indigo, there's no doubt that pre-reduced indigo is more sustainable than powder. You use 70% less hydrosulfite, you use 50% less cost, you get more consistent dyeing, so you die less. But the world has only shifted 35-40% over 40 years to pre-reduced indigo. And from a cost perspective, you're talking maybe two cents per pair of genes difference between powder and pre-reduced. Um, if you now start to look at what's becoming available, and this is we're at the beginning, we're at generation one. So if you if we say that powder indigo is six dollars a kilo, and if we say pre-reduced indigo parity for 94%, and if if you just trust me without going into the detail, it's about$7 a kilo. So it's a dollar a kilo more for the indigo. You know, we're looking at somewhere between$60 and$100 per kilo for bioindigo. Now that means you're adding 50 or 60 cents to a pair of jeans. Again, in in in isolation, that's not a big deal. But if over 45 years you can only go 30% by adding only$1 per kilo to the indigo, you can imagine that anything between$50 and$100 is going to be a problem. It looks like, from my early uh research and my very base, I'm not a bioengineer. The challenge is that when you go from glucose is the starting material for this bioindigo.

Andrew 26:19

And you use very smart for those that don't know the word glucose really intimately, it's sugar.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Exactly. Sugar is the feedstock for the bacteria, and the waste material of the bacteria, if you do it right, is indigo. What seems to happen is the yield of that conversion is basically controlled by the toxicity of the indigo for the bacteria. So, what I mean by that is if you go all the way to indigo, if you ask the bug to convert the glucose all the way to indigo, the yield that you get is very low because you start to kill the bacteria at the same rate that you create indigo. And the yield defines the cost. There's a few companies out there who stop a couple of uh structures before indigo, which is much less toxic. There's a product called anthranilic acid, which is one of the intermediates on the way to indigo. If you stop there, you get a much higher yield, and then you finally convert it by conventional chemistry. This seems to be the difference between$100 per kilo bio indigo, all the way to bioindigo, to uh to around a$50 per kilo. But the real challenge in the market is you know, are the brands willing to pay for a perpetual large-scale collection? Um, you know, my experience trying to sell sustainable chemistry to brands across the board is that they love the idea, but they don't like any increase in costs. And this has always been the challenge that we have.

Andrew 27:50

And there's clearly why we need governments to just outlaw indigo, and the case is over.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

The case is over, but I would also say that the companies working on it and making great progress, they don't have the commercialization yet. They don't have the capacity, they don't have the commercialization. So with, you know, back to 120,000 tons. Uh, probably over the last two years, 60,000 tons have been utilized at the powder synthetic indigo. 60,000 tons is a lot of products. You know, to convert that to bioindigo is going to take some time. Um, but legislation would certainly help. Um, but again, you know, at the moment, I don't see the priority on sustainability, certainly from the US perspective, let's put it that way.

Andrew 28:37

This episode of the Jeans Land Podcast is brought to you by Inside Denim, the global resource for everything denim, from sustainability insights to fabric innovation and brand stories shaping the future of the genes industry. Inside Denim keeps you informed and inspired. So stay ahead of what's next in Denim at insidedenim.com. You can also visit genesland.co and sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter. It gives you access to our full archive along with the development shifts and stories shaping the denim supply chain in real time. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to stay connected between episodes. What about bioengineer for other colors?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Does that exist? Yeah, it does exist. And but what's fascinating is it seems to be, you know, I mentioned earlier that you need a yellow, a red, and a blue if you're going to dye polyester or cotton to give you the maximum coloration, uh, the maximum options. The blue that most people use is indigo. Now, we all know that you can't use indigo for conventional reactive or a conventional cotton exhaust dye, but they're trying to use it. So the way I see the industry right now, generation one, is they've found a way to make a yellow, a red, and a blue dye, and they're trying to put them together to try and dye cotton. They're terrible, they have no affinity. It's like trying to dye indigo exhaust on cotton, it doesn't work. But it's generation one. You know, one thing I've mentioned to most of these companies is it's taken 150 years to get the first red dye to the dye that we have today that works with high fastness, with great fixation, you can't overnight create that biobacteria. So, my my expectation is that the framework of all of these dye molecules will be created by bioengineering, and then the finishing and the molecular uh tweaking will be finished by the conventional industry. So if you've got something that's 90% carbon backbone from sugar, and then you start adding your reactive groups and your amino groups and your sulfur, your sulfurating groups, this will be done by convention. So I see a hybrid technology, certainly in the next 10 to 15 years, um, which is also what I mentioned about Indiola. Now, I see the fact that you take it halfway where it's not toxic to the bacteria, and then you finish it with conventional chemistry to have something that's still 90% uh carbon, bio-based carbon backbone. Well, there are a lot of companies working on in this area, getting a lot of funding, and some are breaking through with some interesting chemistry.

Andrew 31:12

So, talking about the number of companies, I was shocked to hear how many chemical companies there are today. I mean, there's a show, I read about a show in China, and apparently there are 600 or 700 exhibitors. There's a massive amount of chemical companies. The reason that interests me so much is because in fibers, many people want to know where their fibers are from. But when it comes to chemistry, I'm not sure anyone really knows or has so far investigated deeply where their chemistry comes from.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

No, it's a it's it's an interesting point. I would say that there you've got three types of dice stuff manufacturers. And now we're talking about the whole dye stuff world, not just Indigo, right? So you've got people who synthesize dyes from the beginning, the big dye synthesizers. There are not many of those because the investment into machinery is huge. You've got a group in India, a group in China, and you still have the manufacturers from Europe. You know, that I don't know any uh dye stuff manufacturers, synthesizers left in America. Um, then you have the formulators, so the chemicals, so the auxiliaries, the finishing, you know, water repellency, moisture management, UV protection, the laundry chemicals. This is much easier, and there are many, many more of those because it's basically it's like making a cup of coffee, right? You add a few different parts of different chemicals and then you play.

Andrew 32:39

They buy the water from whoever they get the water from, they buy little components and they just add it.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

And then you've got the traders, right? So the traders are the ones that cherry pick certain finished products from different companies and bring their story to market. Uh and if I look at, you know, the top of the pyramid are the dice synthesizers, then you've got the formulators, the next, but the big mass market are the traders. Now, going back to the the question about concern about what's in the product, of course, labels like the ZDHC M RSL, the Ercatex e-code label, Blue Sign, these basically reduce the liability of the brand to make sure that there are no nasty chemicals left on the fabric. This is certainly the most important priority. What it doesn't, what it doesn't do so well, but it is starting to do now, is telling you how much is left in the environment after they've applied it. So it's if you've got, you know, 10% of the toxic products impurity in your product, but 99% of it isn't on the fabric, then it's not a concern. But that 99% is going in the environment. So that there's now legislation, there's now what we call MRSLs, manufacturing restricted substance limits. So it's what's in the drum compared to RSL, which is restricted substance list, that's what's on the fabric. Um that's tightening up because of recycling. People want to know what's in, not only what the fiber is, but what's inside the fiber. You can imagine that PFAS, PFAS is C6, water and oil repeller. I think a lot of people already know about forever chemicals. Uh, they found that C6 never breaks down in the environment and it's slowly building up. Most people have PFAS, C6 in our bodies, in our bloodstream. Now, these have been banned for some years, but you can imagine that if I'm recycling an old sports or an outdoor wear jacket that contained an oil repellent, it's still there. So if I'm recycling that, I'm bringing that oil repellent, that forever chemical, back into the recycling industry. Now, that there hasn't been enough discussion, in my opinion, about the chemicals we're bringing back into the recycling world. Um, this has to now become important because you can't close one eye over what we're producing today compared to what we produced before if you're recycling it.

Andrew 35:03

I just saw a movie about DuPont and how they invented Teflon and the tremendous damage that Teflon caused.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Is this Dark Waters, this movie that you watched?

Andrew 35:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's it's scary. It's frightening. And now, if you think of those chemicals on our clothes that are being recycled and regurgitated, they're so unhealthy for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

No, they are. And the challenge is a lot of these recycling companies say look, if you start to have to test the fabrics as well, it becomes cost prohibitive. It gets back down to cost. Yes. Um, but again, you can't close one eye to what we're creating today compared to what we did before. There has to be consistency, there has to be regulation. And I I see this as happening. I think some of the great recyclers and the more progressive are having this test. Or you sort, you know, you make sure that you don't put your polyester outdoor jacket with a polyester um t-shirt. Because the t-shirt, well, we've had a C6, but the jacket will have had it. So there's got to be some smart um sorting, there's got to be some consistency. But this will be the problem for me in the future. But people are looking into it. Finally. Finally.

Andrew 36:15

Because there's been a lot of conversation about one about recycling and how wonderful. But they've been recycling, you know, um dangerous things and creating recycled dangerous things.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

And it's just Well, the other crazy the other crazy thing, just to let you know, and it's not the problem with indigo. Indigo, in fact, is not an issue. You can remove it quite easily. But we've just for the last 20 years, 30 years, I've been trying to create new dye stuffs that don't wash off and uh are unbreakable with all of the new detergents that you can buy as a consumer. So the fact that when you get to the end of life of that cotton t-shirt, you can easily remove the dice stuffs and leave the cotton white again. It's a it's uh a paradox because you can't do it. You know, we've actually created dyes that don't fade and dyes that don't wash off. And now we want dyes that wash off and fade. It's it doesn't make sense. There has to be a greater discussion about fixation, fastness, and ease of removal at the end of life. And this is the challenge we have.

Andrew 37:10

I always tell my friends when we go for dinner who don't know anything about my business, because they ask me sometimes this question about my business. And I say to them only one thing. I say, Do you know if your blouse is toxic? And they just stare at me and I say, Did anyone mention that to you in the store? Do you care? And then they all start laughing.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Nobody knows anything. There's been a fascinating uh, and and I I won't name any brands, but but Athleisure has become a massive category that's growing. Uh a lot of compression, a lot of stretch, uh, mainly black, mainly nylon. Uh, there's something called bisphenol. Bisphenol is now on all restricted lists. It's used in every acid dye fixer. So if you've got a black pair of leggings uh that were made less than a year, uh more than a year ago, you have endocrine disrupting uh potential in your black leggings with the acid fixer. Now that's now banned.

Andrew 38:08

And that's great because you wear it really close to your body, it's all tight and all wrapped around your body, it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Well, it it's that, but it's also the philosophy of people who tend to go to yoga uh is more spiritual and more environmental, and they just didn't know. And and the question is how how many other products are still lingering that we don't know of this impact? The bisphenol thing is just a pit, right?

Andrew 38:32

How did all these brands that do all this stuff get away with selling toxic things for so many years and never being hit on it? I I don't get it. Like I think they didn't lose like all these synthetics users, they have like a free ride into doing anything they want.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Yeah, I th I think they didn't. No, Andrew. Um I think, you know, as regulation tightens and as more information becomes available, it's it's like the old story that, you know, in the 50s smoking was good for you, right? Smoking wasn't a problem in the 1950s, but now we all know that smoking is a problem. I think it's an element of that. It's an element of learning, it's an element of uh of understanding, and more information becoming available.

Andrew 39:16

All right, let's go to sustainability, the subject that I always hit on on all these podcasts eventually. What does sustainability and chemistry mean?

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Well, it's a buzzword that's used a lot. Uh for me, sustainable sustainability for me means three things. You have clean chemistry, so no impurity in the environment, it's manufactured as products. In the environment, it's added to the article, and in the user phase and the in the consumer use phase. So it's about clean chemistry. As much as we possibly know, as we've just discussed, there are chemistries that will sorry.

Andrew 39:50

Clean means to you doing the best you can with the intellectual property that you have now.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Clean to me means either taking out toxic byproducts that shouldn't be there, right? So, you know, we're not making pharmaceuticals. We in the chemic in the dying chemical industry, you can't charge the price that pharmaceuticals so it's not pharmaceutical level purity. Um, so there's always going to be some level of impurity. Now you've got to make sure that that level of impurity of toxic materials is handleable or controllable. And this is where these labels that I mentioned, Blue Sign and Ercitex and ZDHC, they have their limit. Now, the way I look at sustainability is you make sure that you're definitely below that limit, but you try and push that limit lower as much as you possibly can. Right? So a good example is in a black dye stuff, there's something called parachloroaniline. A black reactive dye stuff for cotton. Paracloroaniline is a class one carcinogen, but it's the precursor is used in every single black dye stuff reactive dye. Now, the limit that's been allowed, or the limit that they say doesn't cause cancer, which nobody knows, is 20 parts per million. You cannot have 20 parts per million of parachloroaniline left on your fabric. There's tests in place, and the good brands will have Erchitex, Blue Sign, or ZDHC to say my black t-shirt has less than 20 parts per million of parachloroaniline. Now, parachloroaniline, as I mentioned before, has no affinity for cotton. Now I can have 100 parts per million in my dye stuff, and as long as I keep washing it off in the factory, it doesn't end up on the shirt. But where's that parachloroaniline going? It's going in the wastewater. So if I'm a responsible manufacturer, I don't provide something with 100 ppm so I know that it can meet 20. I try and make something with zero ppm of paracloroan, and I destroy it the best I can in the manufacturing phase. So it never even enters the manufacturing. There are very many chemicals like this in many, many molecules that are controlled. So when I say clean chemistry, I mean you control as many of these toxic substances as you can and you reduce as much as possible. The second part of sustainability in my mind is efficient manufacturing. Now, if I can combine processes, so again, I'll go to cotton knits because it's easier to explain. If you're doing a pale shade, you have to pre-treat it, you scour it, you bleach it, you dye it, and then you wash off the dyes that are not fixed. That whole process uses a certain amount of water and liberates a certain amount of CO2 per kilo of cotton. There are many, many great dye stuff manufacturers and chemicals who can reduce that by half. They're just combined processes. They can combine chemistries. You can scour and dye in the same bath. You can wash off in three wash-off baths instead of six. When you actually calculate all of that, you can say that this t-shirt from this fast fashion brand uses 20 litres per t-shirt, whereas this t-shirt is only 10 liters. So clean chemistry pillar one, efficient manufacturing, resource utilised uh manufacturing pillar two, and then durability is pillar three. If I can make the product last longer, which means the consumer doesn't have to buy so often, that's also for me sustainability. So softeners, water repellency, moisture management, all of these things that we're willing to pay for in terms of functionality, you want it to last for 30 washes. You don't want to wash it and then the water repellency has gone after five washes. So though those are the three pillars for me in the textile industry that go across every category that means sustainability to me.

Andrew 43:41

So just as a, I'm gonna ask a very American question. So for those of you in Europe listening, I'm sorry. But as a person in the chemistry industry, if you think about the general product that's in Walmart or Kohl's or Sam's Club, the places that really move a lot of garments, what do you think is going on in there? What would you worry about? In their garments.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

I wouldn't be too worried about dirty chemistry above legislation levels. I think they have their supply chain in place in terms of labeling. My concern in these types of large big box retail stores is inefficiency in use. Also overproduction. You know, we all know that if you want 10,000 t-shirts, you don't pay much more for 100,000. So I better make 100,000 and sell 90,000 off uh uh cheaper in the discounts. That's killing the industry because every t-shirt is taking 20 or 30 litres. The challenge we have in the industry is proving how many litres you're using per kilo. There'll be something you mentioned Europe. Europe are introducing DPP, which is the digital product passport. Um, nobody really knows just yet what that will include. We've got an idea what it will include. But one of the things that it has to start including is how many liters of water and how much CO2 was liberated when I made that t-shirt. Once that legislation, back to your legislation comment, once that comes into effect, mills will have to start looking at how more efficient they can be with their production. At the moment, there's no driver for them to change. Are suppliers involved in the discussion of the product passport? Um suppliers of Dyson Chemicals?

Andrew 45:24

Well, for example, you you work for massive chemical companies like Archroma. Are they involved? Is the government talking to them? Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

It's not got down to that level. Uh, but this will be a this will be a massive boost to those progressive chemical companies who've been trying to sell their more efficient chemistry. And they've always been hit by this cost, this cost, this cost, this cost. Um, there's also another challenge, Andrew, on the other side. Today, there's no actual way of taking the data for that brand. So let me give you an example. If I'm in Bangladesh and I'm working for two fast fashion brands in the same factory, I might use efficient chemistry for one and non-efficient chemistry for the other. When they try and calculate my resource utilization, they take my whole mill's capacity over the year, divide it by the number of litres of water, and say, and the average. So all of the all of the great stuff I'm doing for one brand is being average and used for the one doing the bad stuff. So there needs to be a lot of discussion with machinery manufacturers. They need to be able to remotely capture by process. So, you know, I'm working for Fast Fashion Brand One. I press the button, it captures the data until I stop. And that data is what it took to make my black t-shirt. Also, a black t-shirt uses three times more Watson than a white t-shirt. But again, in a mill, you don't just make black t-shirts, you make everything. But it's all averaged at the end of the day. So there has to be some changes in terms of data collection. Um, there has to be discussions with the uh big dying chemical suppliers. And I know that there are certain sustainability indices being created to say that this product will save you energy and water in production. Uh, so there are movements in that way. Legislation will be the catalyst to get it all to come together. But back to your question, with the big box stone, my concern would be overproduction and more resource utilization, water usage and CO2 liberation rather than clean chemistry. Because I don't believe um that those brands would ruin their reputation on having a toxic chemical uh scare.

Andrew 47:31

They say um I this is kind of funny. I did a podcast where I was a guest for some event in France, and what is the name of the prince in Monaco? Prince Albert Albert, that was him. He did the opening remarks, and in the opening remarks, he said that the fashion industry was the second most wasteful industry on the planet. Well, he clearly didn't have access to Chat GPT, and it definitely is not true, which I advised the organization afterwards. The first dirtiest industry is mining, but up there, second or third or fourth, is petrochemical industry. And that involves chemistry. Is the industry able to clean up eventually? Is there an interest or a plan, or is it necessary, or what actually is going to happen?

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah, I don't have a crystal ball, but knowing the companies that I previously worked for.

Andrew 48:25

Yeah, you know the mentality. You know the mentality inside those companies or the owners of those companies, because it's not necessarily the people, it's the owners and the management that decides.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Yeah, I mean, my previous company, there was less little desire to move the needle. Um, there'll be a shift to bio-based raw materials where possible. So there are certain things that you can make large-scale industrial bio-based materials, but the cost is still there. That cost comment runs through everything in the textile industry. Um, you know, I was in the innovation department that I was working on. We we had we had probably 40 or 50 replacement products that had at least 40% biomass-based carbon in there. But when they come to market, they either perform worse or they're more expensive, or they're more expensive and perform worse. And this is this is the challenge. You know, my my vision or my view, it's a bit of a lofty vision. But I I truly believe that the future of our industry, we have the takeback, we have the recycling, we have the reuse, that that'll start to grow and become a certain level. For me, it's a bit like what Apple did with music. I I truly believe that when somebody invests in the drape of 3D printing, I honestly think that not too far away, and maybe 15 to 20 years away, if there's investment starting now by people like Amazon and Apple and these types of people, because the conventional chemical companies are not going to do it. Maybe the fiber companies might do. But but what you do is HM, for example, or or Walmart or whoever, they sell a digital file like an MP3, and you take that file with your bespoke cuts and fittings to your local store, and they 3D print your gallon. And when they 3D print it, they print it in a way that the research has already been done, that you can remove that dye stuff from that fiber at the end of life, and it starts again. You know what went in, you know how to remove it, it goes back in. That's for me a truly circular uh way in the future where there's no overproduction. You make your bespoke products as you want. Now, people laugh at me when I mention this because they say, Have you seen the 3D prints? You can only 3D print choose. It's a matter of time, in my opinion. Um, but there has to be investment. And unfortunately, the companies that I'm aware of are not truly investing in that technology. Maybe some fiber companies are. That for me is the future of the fashion industry. I agree with you. I don't think tweaking here and there, and and let's just go to denim for a second. You know, what's interesting in denim, I was working for uh a large Chinese uh discount company, which I think we all know. They were 3D, they were digital printing washdowns of denim onto Ecru woven trousers. And we actually created an indigo die that looked like indigo. It didn't wash down like indigo, it was basically a digital print. Um, now that used almost zero water, zero energy. It was completely bespoke, but it wasn't it wasn't denim, and and I hated it. It was awful. And you would hate it as well, Andrew. I think if you it wasn't really a pair of denim, but from a distance, from a fashion perspective, it looked like denim. So, you know, that there are things happening, and I honestly believe that the the end game will be, you know, bespoke 3D printed uh garments at your local manufacturing hub.

Andrew 51:56

I agree with you. I think that the big what I agree on is this that the big companies need to get involved in our industry because right now it's just full of small proprietary companies or companies that have no interest in investing, they just want to reap. So I agree. So that's the really big change. So you had a great career in this business overall, right? I've loved it.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

It's it's 37 years this year, uh, and I've been able to travel the world. I'm I meet amazing people. I've learned a lot, I learn every day. I I love this industry.

Andrew 52:26

You love it. This is the theme of our podcast. It's people that either love to get into it or love it. It's amazing to have you here, and I'm really grateful for your time. And I'm always blown away by your knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Oh, thanks for the discussion, Andrew. And by the way, that Newton uh place is still open. So whenever you're ready for another round of seafood and you're willing to get on that plane, definitely. Thank you, Paul. All right, thanks.