Wool passes with flying colours

With the textile industry increasingly focused on minimising its environmental footprint, Woolmark is seeking ways to ensure that wool textile production minimises the consumption of resources and the production of pollution. 

One of the areas of textile production that Woolmark has been looking at is dyeing, which traditionally requires a variety of chemicals, including caustic soda, acids, bleach, and salts, all washed with between 60 and 120 litres of water per kilogram of yarn. 

Woolmark has joined up with COLOURizd™, an innovative US-based company that has developed a revolutionary yarn colouring process called QuantumCOLOUR™ that significantly reduces resource consumption, pollution and costs. 

Rather than being a traditional wet colouring process, QuantumCOLOUR™ operates in a ‘dry’ factory environment. Using just 0.5 litres of water per kilogram of yarn, this technology eliminates the need for bleaching, pre-treatment and wastewater discharge.  

Instead of using traditional chemicals, it only uses wetting agents, and an optimum dosage of non-harmful, bluesign^®-certified pigment and binder injected into a raw yarn fibre bundle, minimising chemical wastage. The process is streamlined and happens at room temperature, thereby significantly reducing resource consumption. 

The new QuantumCOLOUR™ technology enables the colouration of wool and wool blend yarns with less cost and a smaller environmental footprint than traditional dyeing. 

The QuantumCOLOUR™ process has been tested to meet Woolmark's quality control standards for colourfastness and durability. The technology has been successfully validated on 100% Merino wool, as well as blends with cotton, TENCEL™ and nylon, and on a range of yarn counts. 

Another benefit of this cutting edge process is that it eliminates the variability commonly associated with conventional dyeing techniques, such as shade bands. Its ability to colour multiple fibre types in a single pass eliminates the complexity and cost typically associated with cross dyeing, a process that often leads to inconsistency and high resource consumption.  

The process enables the production of wool and wool blend yarns in a full spectrum of colours and diverse shades for both knitted and woven textiles across apparel and homeware.  

“After extensive testing on Merino wool and wool blends, we realised the team at COLOURizd is on to something truly revolutionary for the wool industry,” said AWI General Manager, Processing Innovation & Education Extension, Julie Davies.  

“The QuantumCOLOUR™ process provides durable solutions, creating faded to saturated tonal depths of colour for wool and wool blends. And since it uses very little water, suppliers can choose to colour wool and wool blend yarns without the need for wastewater processing infrastructure. 

“The availability of this new technology that is suitable for wool and wool blend yarns will help support brands’ sustainability initiatives and the demand for wool.” 

Woolmark and COLOURizd highlighted the QuantumCOLOUR™ technology at the Pitti Immagine Filati trade show held in July in Florence, Italy, and showcased a capsule collection of wool garments (see the above images) that had been coloured using the technology. 

“Woolmark represents the gold standard within the wool industry and they will be instrumental in helping to offer our lower impact, higher performance process to new markets,” said CEO of COLOURizd, Jennifer Thompson. 

“Our current clients include Kontoor Brands (Wrangler and Lee), Cone Denim, and GANT, and working with Woolmark will allow us to reach an entirely new market, bringing sustainability and performance solutions to wool manufacturers around the globe.” 

More information: www.woolmark.com/colourizd

This article appeared in the Spring 2025 edition of AWI’s Beyond the Bale magazine that was published in September 2025. Reproduction of the article is encouraged.