A series of short films in which an artist creates an animation, using school shirts as the canvas and household stains as paint.

After painting each frame on the shirt, he photographs it. Then washes it clean with Persil so it’s ready for the next frame. Each photograph is literally a frame of animation.

We show this process over and over again. With a faster edit each time we repeat it. And the animation unfolds.

It’s a classic Dirt is Good story: two little monsters go on an adventure and have to overcome their fears. In the process, they get dirty and learn they have unexpected skills.

On the last animation frame, we’re back in the studio. The artist takes the shirt to a final wash with Persil.

A series of supers then tells us how the process worked and which stains were used in its creation.

We knew from the start that this animation had to be real. Using real stains on real school shirts, washed completely clean every time using Persil.

Over several months, we experimented with hundreds of household stains to find the right colours and textures to create the stains. From mustard and bolognese, to fresh grass and oil from a bicycle chains.

We even built a bespoke animation studio, that was part artist’s workshop and part laundromat.

For the five e-commerce demos (plus a long-form cinema spot), we created a total of 85 seconds of this unique animation. Equating to nearly 3,500 washes.

The films received 2,089 views in the first 24-hours. Not bad for a series of e-commerce laundry demos with no media spend behind them.