Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I like the smell of Bleach

Beach is a very common household cleaning agent that's been around for a while now. People born before the mid 90's know it as Clorox. Now, however, it is now known by the name Zonrox. Both Clorox and Zonrox are actually brand names of bleach. The only use of bleach i know of from back in the day was for stain removal. It is harsh on the hands and leaves an indescribably unique smell. Back in the day when we didn't have washing machines, we had to touch the bleach in order to apply it to the stain. In some cases we leave the whites to soak in soap water with bleach for about a day to remove those stains that cannot be rubbed of by hand washing.
While surfing the internet a while back, i discovered another use for bleach. Apparently, it can be used to make designs in dark-dyed fabric. Since bleach is used to remove stains, imagine the dye on your black shirt as a stain. Apply bleach and your get a white spot. That's right! Bleach eats the dye of most cotton or cotton-blend fabrics around. Now, making a stencil, put it on the shirt, get a spray bottle, fill it with bleach, and spray on the stencil. The holes on the stencil will allow bleach to make contact with the fabric, leaving you with a bleached design literally tattooed on your shirt. You can never remove the design...not unless you bleach the whole shirt white.
I tried doing shirt designs with bleach, made a few mistakes here and there, but generally, the designs were works of art in their own right. This project of mine was put on hold until recently. Now, i think i will restart my bleach designs again. Seeing that clothes are a need of humans and of course, who wouldn't want a radical shirt that has a permanent design on it?
I have developed a bit of tolerance to the smell of bleach and I have come to know the unique smell of it. In the following weeks, i might post some of my shirts here. I will be putting my knives project on hold for a while since i lost most of my research on knives because my portable drive got busted.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Bleach Art! That's something new! or something old turned new? Whatever. Nowadays, bleach is more known not as a cleaning agent but something that you watch on TV. hehehehe...

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  2. hahaha... I thought so... hahahahaha...

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