Featured Artist : Dan LambertDye Happy

Who I am and what inspired me
My name is Dan Lambert and I hail from Yorktown VA. I'm a tie dye enthusiast and entrepreneur. Dye Happy is my brand, and Tie Dye Dan is my professional alias.

I was inspired to try to make money selling my tie dye while working at Chipotle for fun money in college. I hated every minute of it. All I could think when I was scooping rice and beans was how there had to be a better way... other people could do it, so why couldn't I? Tie dye immediately came to mind. With low start up costs and my previous experience from when I was in high school, it was the perfect plan!

What I did about it
I began making shirts in my apartment bathtub and enthusiastically marketed myself as Tie Dye Dan. I sold my tie dye to friends on campus through word of mouth initially. I started posting pictures of people having fun wearing my tie dye on Instagram and started selling online. I knew I was getting traction when the school paper featured me in an article "Tie Dye Dan gains popularity" and then a regional paper "Tie-Dye Dan Transformed His Hobby Into An International Business".

I kept going. I started selling my tie dye at the local Farmer’s Market. That worked wonders, so I started selling at other local events and then some regional and national events. Now I have an e-commerce website and sell internationally. This is my pursuit of happiness.

What inspires me to create
What it means to be happy has been pondered for thousands of years. Socrates (469-399 BC) believed only people with self-knowledge can find true happiness, and that happiness flows not from physical or external things like bodily pleasures or wealth and power, but from living a life that’s good for your soul. My Dye Happy brand embodies this perspective of happiness, and nothing inspires me more than knowing that my art touches the souls of those around me.

What we make
With the help of my good friend Tie Dye Tim, we make branded tie dye shirts, hoodies and tapestries. We hand dye each one using a combination of tie dye and ice dye techniques then use a heat press to apply my Dye Happy logo. Dye Happy is the world's first handmade branded tie dye clothing line too! How cool is that?

What Dharma Products we use
We only use Dharma Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes. Compared to all-purpose dyes, fiber reactive dyes are brighter, more colorfast, and easier to use. Fiber reactive dye chemistry is a huge topic, but the short version is Fiber Reactive Procion dye molecules are chemically engineered to form a covalent bond (when atoms share electrons) with cellulose fiber molecules. In other words, when the dye sets the dye molecule is literally part of the cellulose fiber molecule so it doesn't fade..

Dharma has the widest range of fiber reactive Procion dye colors I’ve found. We use 24 of their 200+ colors (and still growing), 6 Red Shades, 4 Yellow Shades, 6 Green Shades, 6 Blue Shades and 2 Black Shades.