Why We're Rethinking Fashion Care for a Post-Chemical Future

Our understanding of fashion care has long operated on a single assumption; that stronger chemistry equals cleaner clothes. Bleaches, synthetics, and solvents became the backbone of laundry culture, and in the process, we had normalised damage as a side effect of “clean.” Fibres weaken, colour dulls, and garments shed microplastics into waterways; this is the damage on our clothes, accepted as the status quo, simply because we wash them.

At The Lab, we’ve questioned that logic for over a decade. We’re more convinced than ever that the next era of fashion sustainability will be defined by what we make, and how we maintain it. In a world increasingly conscious of circularity and resource limits, care is a critical infrastructure; the invisible system that determines how long clothing truly lasts and how much environmental debt it accrues along the way. Our work focuses on biological performance, and we harness enzyme and probiotic technologies that clean deeply, build fibre resilience, and protect garments without harmful residues or PFAS-based barriers. For us, the future of care is about moving beyond chemical aggression toward a microbiome-positive approach — one that collaborates with life.

Traditional cleaning methods are built on opposition. Dirt is generally framed as the enemy, and chemical intensity as the weapon. This mindset has served industry efficiency, but at the cost of ecological integrity. The collateral damage is immense, and we live among the wreckage of weakened textiles, irritated skin, polluted rivers, and an overreliance on synthetic surfactants that persist in ecosystems for decades. By contrast, biological care begins with understanding that garments, skin, and environment form a living continuum. Every wash cycle is an ecological event in which bacteria are killed or nourished, fibres are stripped or strengthened, and water is either burdened or balanced. Recognising this transforms care from a maintenance task into an act of design, and one with measurable impact across fashion’s entire lifecycle.

Enzymes and probiotics represent a revolution in this space. Enzymes are nature’s precision tools — proteins that catalyse reactions under gentle conditions, breaking down stains without compromising fabric integrity. Probiotics, meanwhile, restore balance to microbial ecosystems, ensuring that cleaning is a regenerative process. When combined, these biological agents deliver a new kind of performance led by fabric-safe and microbiome-supportive deep cleaning.

Studies show that extending a garment’s active life by just nine months can reduce its carbon, water, and waste footprint by up to 30%, according to WRAP’s 2016 report “Design for Extending Clothing Life.” Yet the care practices most people use today directly shorten that lifespan, with high-temperature washes, synthetic detergents, and harsh solvents accelerate fibre breakdown — particularly in blended textiles. Colours fade, elasticity wanes, and microscopic fragments detach, contributing to the global microplastic crisis. Over time, the cumulative effect of “cleaning damage” dwarfs even the environmental cost of initial manufacturing.

At The Lab, our technologies are designed to reverse this equation. By supporting the natural resilience of fibres through probiotic and enzyme solutions, we help garments retain their structure and surface integrity wash after wash. The result is a longer-lasting wardrobe, and a radical redefinition of what “clean” can mean; freshness achieved through biological intelligence.

Deeper than this, is how we have come to understand the microbiome as a design principle to consider in anything we endeavour to create. Across science, health, and now home care, the microbiome — the vast community of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that sustain life across all environments, from our bodies to our soils — has emerged to us as a guiding paradigm. It teaches us that ecosystems thrive through balance. The human body hosts trillions of microorganisms that protect, regulate, and renew. Our skin, like our garments, performs best in symbiosis with these living networks.

When we apply this understanding to fabric care, a new framework emerges, and we can only be moved toward valuing diversity, longevity, and low-impact transformation. Microbiome-positive cleaning cultivates a stable, beneficial environment in which odour-causing bacteria are outcompeted naturally and fibres remain healthy at the microscopic level. This philosophy is especially relevant as fashion moves toward materials innovation. Natural fibres, biobased blends, and new cellulosic textiles respond better to gentle, biologically attuned cleaning than to the conventional chemical regimes designed for polyester and petroleum-era fabrics. Intelligent care systems, therefore, are a critical bridge between material innovation and consumer use, and the next-gen fabrication space is going to need us in the bio-tech care space in order to maintain fibre integrity, optimise lifecycle performance, and prevent the degradation that occurs when advanced materials meet outdated cleaning methods.

Circularity lives in the day-to-day interactions between people and their clothes. The Lab’s mission is to offer the technologies that make that possible — products that clean effectively at low temperatures, protect natural fibres, and leave behind nothing harmful to people or planet. We envision a care ecosystem in which every wash contributes to preservation rather than depletion; where garments maintain their shape, colour, and texture longer, and where waterways are not burdened with toxic residues. In our post-chemical future, consumers are empowered to participate in sustainability through the simple act of doing laundry and maintenance differently.

This redefinition is both scientific and philosophical, for us. Science provides the mechanism — enzymes, probiotics, and low-impact surfactants that work harmoniously with fabric and environment. Philosophy provides our motive — a belief that the future of fashion sustainability depends on caring intelligently for what we already have, and in turn, the future and integrity of our planet, people and nature.

Care is ecology, and every wash, spray or wipe is a choice between extraction and regeneration. We choose the latter, and we’re designing products to match.