The Best Way to Make a Bleach Shirt

Last week we published a video on how to screen print with bleach to make a bleach shirt using a homemade paste. There was a lot of interest on this topic. We got a number of suggestions, and so we decided to put those suggestions to the test and see which one came out on top. It was like a bleach battle royale!

Watch the Video:

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

For this experiment, we used three different methods to bleach a shirt, all at the same time. We had these cool rooster stencils made with EZScreens® (fancy, right?) to help us out. The first stencil got the cornstarch and bleach treatment, the second got a dose of Clorox Toilet Bowl cleaner, and the third was lathered up with Soft Scrub with bleach. It was like a spa day for shirts!

The Results Are In

After carefully squeegeeing each bleach solution through the stencils (gotta keep it neat and tidy, folks), we waited with bated breath to see the results. And the winner was…drumroll, please…

Cornstarch solution and Soft Scrub were the real MVPs of the bleaching game. They worked like a charm. The Soft Scrub may have even had a little bit more detail.

However, the toilet bowl cleanser was a bit of a letdown. It was too liquidy and ended up bleeding underneath the stencil, creating a bit of a mess.

Do It Yourself

If you want to get that faded weightless printing effect too, here are a few things you are going to need:

• EZScreens (Pick one):
• Pick up a kit to make your own stencils, or
• Get a ready to use stencil with a design by EZScreenPrint, or 
• Get a custom stencil made, skip straight to the printing step
• Soft Scrub: Pick this up at any grocery store
• Or Clorox and corn starch: Again, your local grocery store is likely the best option here
• Printing accessories: There are some other tools of the trade you might want to pick up, like frames, squeegees, or ink if you are doing bleach and ink printing. You can check those out here.

PS

After making this video, we got even more comments on how we should bleach shirts, or get a similar effect. This is turning into a whole series, so if you want to see what we do next, come back or follow us @ezscreenprint wherever you hang out online.