If you're planning to earn some course credits at the local college or university next...

Ever had a red sock turn all your white shirts pink in the wash? That's one of the troubles of conventional dyes-they tend to bleed. Fiber-reactive dyes, however, bond chemically to fibers for exceptional colorfastness. Of course, for the environmentally conscious, the real problem with conventional dyes has nothing to do with socks, but rather water contamination. Large quantities of dyes, most of which are petroleum-based, are used in commercial textile facilities, and a great deal of those dyes run off and end up in the water supply. Fiber-reactive dyes are sometimes referred to as low impact dyes because the dying process uses less water and therefore generates much less wastewater runoff and contamination. Most of these dyes are still made with petroleum-based chemicals, however, so are not entirely virtuous. Also called low impact dye.

Many catalogs that arrive in people's mailboxes across the nation end up going straight to the...