Creating Precise Match Color Standards
Metro Dyeing produces the strictest color matches for the most well known brands in the world. Our color match process involves a convergence of the most advanced color measurement instruments and software in the field, with a team of the most experienced colorists in the industry.
Unmatched Precision and Quality
We understand that precision and quality are the foundation of exceptional textiles. Lab dips play a crucial role in ensuring your fabrics achieve the exact color match before full-scale production. With decades of experience, advanced degrees, and a modern textile laboratory, we specialize in delivering industry-leading lab dip dyeing services tailored to your needs.
What Are Lab Dips and Why Are They Important?
Lab dips are small fabric swatches dyed in a controlled laboratory environment to match a specified color standard, often using the customer's QTX data. These swatches ensure the desired shade and tone are achieved before committing to large production runs. Lab dips save time, reduce costs, and eliminate the risk of color inconsistencies, which can negatively impact your brand’s image and bottom line.
Learn how color bonds to different fibers and impacts lab dip accuracy. Different fibers absorb dyes uniquely, leading to variations in color depth and consistency. Our expertise in fiber-specific dyeing ensures the highest level of accuracy, preventing unexpected shifts in hue across various fabric types.
We refer to our larger lab dips as "super dips" because we produce them on fabrics ranging from 3 to 11 yards. Our laboratory is uniquely equipped to accommodate lab dips of all sizes—from 2 in. x 2 in. swatches to full super dips—ensuring we meet the diverse needs of our customers. This flexibility allows us to create color standards used in every stage of the garment manufacturing process, from creation to retail, factories, and distributors throughout the supply chain.
Our team of expert colorists and chemists, holding certifications in ASDC and CCOL, has worked in the largest textile dyeing mills around the world, meeting the strictest standards in the industry.
High accuracy launderometer
Required for achieving full color saturation on polyester, acetate, cotton, and synthetic blended fabrics. Once the color is fully achieved in our laboratory and the customer has approved, the dye recipe is passed to our machine operators to process in our jet dyeing machines.
Atmospheric launderometer
Lab dips for garment dyeing and piece goods dyeing of nylon, silk, linen, rayon, cotton, and other fibers are created using this machine, Once the lab dip is created and approved by customer it is passed to our machine operators to process in one of our beck dyeing or rotary dyeing machines.
Datacolor Spectrophotometer
All lab dips and color matches begin with our spectrophotometer to capture the true spectral fingerprint of any color at the highest possible accuracy with the least metamerism. In conjunction with our jet dyeing machines we routinely match bright, deep, and dark colors on natural and synthetic fibers for major brands with the most stringent color tolerances.
Light Booth
Our laboratory is equipped with light boxes for color critical visual assessments under 6 different light sources. Color looks different when lighting changes, which is why controlled lighting is mandatory in the technical dyeing field.
Textile laboratory Services
- Color standards. Unlimited colors on all substrates
- Lab dips. Unlimited colors on all substrates
- Technical matching to spectral tolerances using Datacolor Spectrophotometer. Providing reports to customer.
- Matching to QTX files (Datacolor's native file format)
- Yardage dyeing to precisely match approved lab dips
- 100% filtered water throughout entire dyehouse to maintain exact PH levels and formula consistency during the chain of custody of every job
- Testing goods for DWR (durable water repellant), Silicone, Optical Brightener, and other commonly used finishes prior to dyeing yardage.
- 24-hour service available
- Returned individually packaged and labeled.
- Polyester and acetate dyeing
- Metro Online App for customer collaboration and real time updates on work in progress.
Expertise in Laboratory Dyeing
Our laboratory dyeing technicians have completed vigorous certifications and ongoing training to ensure our customers strict requirements are always met. We develop colors for a multitude of clients across the brand and retailer sectors of the textile and fashion industries. The dye team provide hands on attention to every single textile that passes through our facility. Our dyeing team possess elite degrees in the fundamental principles of fiber formation, wet process dyeing technology, dyeing chemistry, color science, and polymer science. Laboratory dyeing is an essential component to accurate color matching. In the laboratory our technicians test for preexisting finishes that may affect the fabrics ability to be properly dyed. We test all goods prior to dyeing the yardage to ensure there are no finishes present that may cause defects in the dyeing. This also ensures a highly accurate color match.
