Rather… muted… performance, for better or for worse:

https://www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.1011927001.html

> “[Synthetic dyes] provide a wide colour spectrum, which brands like, and deliver predictable results - perhaps why no viable solution has been able to compete.”

Just to indulge my inner HN ultra-pedant… if a solution is viable, doesn’t that suggest that it’s competitive?

> ” Instead of mining oil or boiling vats of chemicals, Colorifix uses engineered microorganisms, (essentially programmable microbes) to grow colours in the lab.”

What is the distinction between coercing bacteria to synthesize molecules and using chemistry to synthesize molecules (from, say, hydrocarbons)? Does the source of the dye affect the amount of water they need to fix the dye to the textiles?

If we’re still dunking textiles in vats of dye (just from living microorganisms instead of Paleolithic ones), how does that address:

> ”Textile dyeing is actually one of the most chemically intensive and polluting elements of garment production, accounting for roughly 20% of global industrial water pollution.”

> Just to indulge my inner HN ultra-pedant… if a solution is viable, doesn’t that suggest that it’s competitive?

In the economic sense, maybe. But I think they meant viability in the technical sense there.