Bleaching and Stamping on Shirts: What I Tried, What Worked, and What I’d Do Again

I've seen other creators make bleached flannels. There are some great videos with multiple strategies on YouTube. I was inspired. I started experimenting, got a little obsessed, and then one of the shirts sold!!! That was all the justification I needed to keep buying flannel shirts and calling it “research.” It also made me realize I should probably write down what I’d learned before I forgot why I did half of it.

That shirt (the angel wings flannel) surprised me in the best way. I wrote about it here because the story mattered to me at the time:

👉 The Shirt That Sold
https://purplemonkeymanor.com/blogs/life-not-edited/the-shirt-that-sold

This post is the practical companion to that story.

What follows isn’t a formula. It’s a field report. It's what surprised me, what consistently mattered, and what did absolutely nothing no matter how politely I asked it to.

What this project actually was

I treated the shirt itself as the surface, ink and bleach.

I applied ink to fabric on some and then instead of applying pigment on top of fabric, I removed color from it, sometimes with stamps, sometimes with stencils, using pressure, timing, and different media rather than precision or confidence I had not yet earned.

This played out across multiple shirts:

A sentimental, grunge-era, vintage flannel.
A flannel saved from the "to be donated" pile. It eventually sold!!
A denim shirt that "failed" in a very educational way.

The learning didn’t come from perfecting one shirt. It came from watching how different fabrics reacted when I did roughly the same thing and expected them to behave.

They did not.

A few things worth knowing before you start

These are the lessons that actually mattered, discovered the slow way:

Bleach is unpredictable. That’s not a bug; that’s the beauty.
Fabric matters more than technique. Two shirts can respond like they’ve never met.
Some results wash out. That’s information, not failure.
Wearable and imperfect are not opposites. They’re usually friends.

If you’re craving control, this may not be your craft.

If you’re open to curiosity, it’s a good one.

What I actually used

(Some of these are affiliate links. Clicking them earns me a few cents - maybe someday enough to buy another thrift store flannel shirt.)

Shirts

Flannel was my favorite. Although, since my closet contains half a dozen other denim shirts, I'll probably try denim again at some point. Jeans might be fun!! Thrifted, donated, old, or inexpensive shirts were ideal, especially at the beginning. Starting with something I was willing to ruin gave me a level of creative freedom I highly recommend.

Bleach

I used both liquid and gel bleach because, when stamping, the thickness of the gel helped it stay on the stamp. I didn't understand the chemistry, but I understood the behavior, and that turned out to be enough.

👉 Gel Bleach (Amazon):
https://amzn.to/4p1v94N

Stencils

The shirt that sold used an angel wing stencil. I’m sold out of the exact one, but I found two solid alternatives on Amazon depending on shirt size.

👉 Angel Wing Stencil – approx. 16" tall (good for smaller shirts):
https://amzn.to/4jb3bST

👉 Angel Wing Stencil – approx. 25" tall (better for larger shirts):
https://amzn.to/4930yOh

Stamps

Thick, deeply etched stamps (as most IOD stamps are) performed far better on fabric than fine, delicate designs.

The stamp I used over and over in these experiments:

👉 IOD Sunflowers Stamp:
https://purplemonkeymanor.com/products/sunflowers-two-page-stamp

Detail held surprisingly well, even when my design aesthetic was… aspirational.

Ink

I tested IOD ink alongside bleach, hoping to create some depth in my design.

👉 IOD Decor Ink:
https://purplemonkeymanor.com/products/decor-ink

Results varied wildly by fabric. On cotton, it behaves. I have a pillowcase that I stamped and tumbled in the dryer on high. It has been washed 50 times and the ink has stayed. On the Walmart, questionable-blend denim, it absolutely did not set permanently, no matter how much heat I applied.

Application tools

These showed up repeatedly, mostly as ways to control distribution.

👉 Craft Sponges:
https://amzn.to/4s55s5Q

👉 IOD Brayer:
https://purplemonkeymanor.com/products/brayer

None of these are magical. They just help you be more intentional while experimenting.

A loose process overview

At a high level, the work looked like this:

Choose a shirt you’re willing to experiment on
Protect your workspace and yourself
Watch, wait, and resist the urge to “fix”
Wash once the reaction has done its work

Attention matters more than order.

What happened on flannel (the good surprises)

Flannel was forgiving in the best way.

Blue flannel often shifted pink
Gray flannel warmed into orange tones
The weave absorbed variation gracefully

Even when placement or timing wasn’t perfect, the results still felt intentional and wearable. The plaid did a lot of aesthetic heavy lifting, and I appreciated it for that.

What happened on denim (the useful failure)

The denim shirt was an excellent teacher.

Bleach worked
Heat setting the ink failed despite using both dryer and iron

The likely issue was the fabric blend, not the process. Here's the design as I originally planned.

Here's the shirt after being washed and worn 20 times. The shirt is still wearable, but the ink wasn’t permanent.

Safety, briefly and clearly

Bleach deserves respect.

Work in a ventilated area (outdoors or garage preferred)
Wear gloves
Wear old clothes
Protect surrounding surfaces

If you want the story behind the shirt that sold

One flannel from this project, the angel wings stencil shirt, actually sold. Its lives here:

👉 The Shirt That Sold
https://purplemonkeymanor.com/blogs/life-not-edited/the-shirt-that-sold

Final note

This wasn’t about mastering a technique.
It was about paying attention.

If you approach this as play instead of performance, you’ll enjoy the process and probably the end result, a bunch more.