WTRLSS, the Los Angeles and Basel-based venture formerly trading as Lab Denim, has responded to a fuller set of follow-up questions from Ecotextile News about its digital indigo dyeing technology, resolving some ambiguities from its public launch while leaving others unanswered.

The company launched publicly in August with a supply-chain pitch aimed squarely at denim mills and finishers: replace the multi-stage, water-intensive indigo dyeing and finishing process with a single digital application step.

The headline claims are substantial. WTRLSS says the process cuts water use in dyeing and finishing by up to 99.9% and reduces energy use by 90%. If verified at commercial scale, those figures would speak directly to compliance pressure building on denim suppliers in water-stressed sourcing regions.

For now, the figures rest on the company's own framing. The qualifier "up to" carries the load, and the venture has proved more forthcoming under scrutiny than at launch — but gaps in disclosure remain, as Ecotextile News' questioning made clear. The publication put a fuller set of follow-up questions to the company; some earlier ambiguities were resolved, others were not addressed.

The compliance angle matters as much as the process engineering. Water discharge from indigo dyeing and finishing is a named pressure point in textile effluent regulation and in buyer-side environmental standards applied across denim sourcing countries such as Turkey, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Any technology claiming a 99.9% reduction in dyeing and finishing water use positions itself as a route to those requirements, not merely a cost play.

That positions WTRLSS in the growing tier of process-technology suppliers — digital and bio-based dyeing ventures — marketing to mills rather than to brands or consumers. Its dual footprint in Los Angeles and Basel places it close to both US denim brands and European chemical-regulation frameworks.

The commercial test, however, is unchanged since launch. Denim mills and their brand customers will need independently verifiable data before re-tooling dye lines around a single-step digital application: measured water and energy performance under production conditions, and clarity on how the chemistry behind the process fits existing effluent and chemical-compliance regimes.

Until WTRLSS closes the remaining disclosure gaps, sourcing and sustainability teams evaluating the venture should treat the 99.9% and 90% figures as vendor claims pending third-party verification — and press for exactly the data the company has so far declined to provide in full.