How can I tie dye with RIT dye?

Are you sure that's what you want to do?

If you want brightly dyed cotton shirts, you should always use fiber reactive dye, rather than all-purpose dye. All-purpose dyes, such as Rit® Tint And Dye, Tintex® High Temp Dye, and other brands, can never be as bright or long-lasting as fiber reactive dyes, when used on cotton or other cellulose fibers.

Rit® brand dye, like all brands of all-purpose dye, is a mixture of two kinds of dyes - an acid dye, which will just wash out of cotton, since acid dyes work only on animal fibers such as wool, or on nylon (but not on other synthetics) - and a direct dye, which is duller in color and bleeds a bit with every single washing, forever, unless a mail-order permanent dye fixative such as Retayne® is applied.

This is a fine idea for nylon fabric, though! The acid dyes in all-purpose dye are more satisfactory than the cotton dye in all-purpose dye, and acid dye can usually dye nylon.

How to do it, anyway

All-purpose dye requires a completely different recipe from fiber reactive dyes. Do not follow the recipes found elsewhere on this web site! They work only with fiber reactive dye.

All forms of all-purpose dye, including Rit® Tint and Dye, Tintex® High Temp Dye, DEKA L® Hot Water Dye, and Dylon® Multi-Purpose Dye, require a considerable amount of moist heat to attach to fabric. This means that the usual tie-dye squirt bottle technique is right out: it simply will not work properly. For instructions, see the Rit Dye web site - but be sure to first acquire some Retayne® or a similar product to make the color permanent! (See below.) Instructions are also given below, as the Rit® web site was unavailable for most of 2002. They are much more cumbersome than using fiber reactive dye, but if you insist on using all-purpose dye, you'll be far better off using the correct instructions:

Retayne®
can fix Rit® dye

Tie. First tie the shirt as usual.
Gloves and tongs. Wear thick rubber, vinyl, or silicone gloves for the following steps, to protect you from the potential toxicity of the dye and to help protect you against the scalding hot water. Use tongs to hold the garment partially submerged in the scalding hot dyebath, but be sure that they are rustproof, as rust can ruin your project. Chrome-plated kitchenware is particularly prone to rust.
Prepare dyebaths. Following the package instructions carefully, prepare a separate dyebath, by mixing dye with water and salt, in a cooking pot (which is NOT to be used for food again, as the dye is not safe for human consumption) for each color of dye.
Heat. Each pot must be heated to be quite hot, preferably to a simmer (190-200° Fahrenheit, or 87-93° Celsius), not as hot as a full boil, for the dye to make its best association with the fiber.
Salt. Include the full amount of salt recommended, ideally an amount that weighs half as much as the weight of the fabric being dyed.
Vinegar is neither necessary nor helpful for dyeing cotton with all-purpose dye, but should be used when dyeing nylon or dyeing animal fibers such as wool. The manufacturers of Tintex® High Temp all-purpose dye recommend the use of 1 cup (250 ml) of white vinegar per 10 liters of water when dyeing wool, silk, or nylon.
Dipping the fabric in the dyebath. For multiple colors on one garment, the garment must be only partially submerged in each dye color. Dip the tied disk of the shirt partially into the simmering dye + water mixture. For pastel colors, you can hold the disk of fabric partially submerged for as little as four minutes, but for bright or dark colors, up to thirty minutes is recommended. BE CAREFUL - hot water can inflict serious burns! Cooler water will not provide long-lasting or bright results, however.
Rinsing. After the fabric has been partially immersed in one color for long enough, remove it from the dye bath and rinse the freshly dyed portion with cool water until you see no more dye in the water that runs off. Use a towel to squeeze out as much of the remaining water as you can.
Repeat the above steps with another portion of the shirt, to apply a different color of dye, overlapping partially, if you like, to get a mixed-color region. Alternatively, traditional tie-dye involves dropping the tied garment into the simmering dyebath for the full recommended time, then untying, washing out and applying ties in another design, and dropping into a different color of dyebath.
Finishing. Remove the ties or rubber bands and rinse the shirt out with cool water. Finish by washing with a special dye fixative such as Retayne, as otherwise the dye will gradually wash out every time you wash it. For best results, anything dyed with all-purpose dye should be considered hand-washable in cool water, though machine washing is okay after Retayne has been used.

(Are you sure you wouldn't rather use cold water fiber reactive dyes, with the safe, quick, easy squirt bottle technique?)

Alternatively, you may apply your all-purpose or direct dye mixed with a small amount of water, allow to dry, then wrap in unprinted newsprint and steam your shirt over boiling water for half an hour or longer (after the water comes to a boil), in a covered pot, just as you would steam vegetables. Do not bake or use other dry forms of heat; dye requires the presence of moisture in order to bond to fiber. Note that even after heat-setting, both all-purpose dye and direct dye will tend to fade badly in the wash unless finished with a cationic dye fixative such as Retayne. Note that some color bleeding is inevitable in the first rinsing and during the Retayne treatment, if the dye is not sufficiently set; it is difficult or impossible to get truly bright results with contrasting colors, when tie-dyeing with all-purpose dye. For the brightest and clearest results, always use fiber reactive dye for tie-dyeing.

After dyeing with all-purpose dye, be sure to finish your dyeing by applying a product to prevent it from running with every wash. Such products include Retayne®, Dharma Dye Fixative®, and Aljo Pro-fix PCD® after-treatment. These products are sometimes available at your local quilting supply store, but usually must be purchased by mail; see Sources for Supplies. Retayne® is a cationic bulking agent that essentially glues the dye into the fiber, making the washfastness of even direct dyes quite acceptable after it is applied.

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