Country: United States of America

Message: I have a premade prom dress that I would very much like to dye! I want to add a simple sun burst or an edge of color that fades...I have tested both and know how to do so on the type of fabric (100 % polyestor), but the fabric is unwashable, and the dye just washes out...I would be very happy if I could just dye the bottom corner of my dress without worrying about the color rubbing off on seats of other girls' dresses throughout the night.  Is there a way I can semi-protect the dye to make it last through just one night? I had general ideas such as hairspray, ect, but was wondering if you knew of a better, more effective, less sticky idea? Thanks so much, love the site!!

If the dye is washing out, then you are using the wrong type of dye! You CANNOT dye polyester with all-purpose dye, such as Rit. There is no dye that works on cotton or other natural fibers that will also work on polyester. Polyester requires its own special type of dye.

As you must know, you can't dye anything that can't be washed, but it sounds as though you are carefully washing out the bottom edge of your dress, at any rate, so that should work out fine. 

I strongly recommend against the use of hair spray or any other spray-on as a fixative, but I have two much better alternatives to suggest.

The first alternative is to use a very good fabric paint instead of a dye. (See "Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers".) You'll need to get a very thin fabric paint for this to work. Don't use a thicker fabric paint, such as "puffy" paint or "slick" paint, and absolutely do not even try artists' acrylic paints or any other non-fabric paint, since the results will be stiff and scratchy. You need a very thin, soft fabric paint, in order to retain the smoothness and softness of your dress.

The two fabric paints I most recommend for this purpose are Dye-Na-Flow, which is made by Jacquard Products, and Dharma Pigment Dyes, which are made by Dharma Trading Company and sold only by mail-order (unless you are near their store in San Rafael, California). You may be able to find Dye-Na-Flow in your local crafts store or sewing store (try calling different stores first to ask whether they carry "Dye-Na-Flow fabric paint") but, if not, you can buy it by mail-order, either from an art supplier such as Blick Art Materials, or from a dye supplier such as Dharma Trading Company.

Both of these specific fabric paints are recommended by their manufacturers for use on both natural and synthetic fibers, including polyester. The advantage of a very thin fabric paint is that it can be heat-set with an iron, and it requires only a little rinsing. Its results will be vastly better than those of trying to use Rit dye to dye polyester, or of trying to use even the right kind of polyester dye in water that is cooler than boiling hot. You can feel the residue of these fabric paints on the fabric, but only slightly, and only if you are paying very close attention. This is completely unlike other sorts of paint, which will markedly change the feel of the fabric.

The second alternative I have for you is to use heat-transfer dyes. These dyes can be used only on synthetic fibers, such as polyester. They are extremely easy to use: you draw or paint your design onto paper, where it will look rather dull in color. If you use the paint form of transfer dyes, you let it dry, but if you use the crayons, you're ready to go as soon as the drawing is completed. You can create a drawing or painting on paper that contains the gradual fading in of color that you want, and then see the results on your fabric. Using a hot iron (and first protecting your ironing board with layers of newspaper or scrap fabric), turn the paper face-down onto the part of your dress you want this part of the design to appear. Press firmly with the hot iron, and the dye will sublimate from the heat, forming a dye vapor that immediately deposits on and inside the fibers in the polyester fabric. That's it, except for rinsing to remove excess loose dye. You can even recolor your paper, and iron it on elsewhere on the dress, for a repeating pattern. 

Obviously the transfer-dye method is unsuitable for dyeing anything a single solid color, but it can produce wonderful effects. The colors become much brighter when they are ironed onto the polyester. There is absolutely no alteration in the softness and the feel of the fabric, after you've ironed on the transfer dyes. For an example, look at a little test I did, on the page, "Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers".

The easiest-to-find transfer dyes are in the form of fabric crayons, which you can buy at a sewing store and some crafts stores. They look exactly like ordinary wax crayons, but their contents are completely different (don't let them get mixed up with any ordinary crayons you may happen to have around). The results do look like crayon drawings on the fabric, which can be a very nice effect. For a different effect, you can mix water with disperse dye powder to create a transfer paint; a good source for the transfer paint powder is by mail-order from PRO Chemical & Dye, in Massachusetts. The painted effect is a little more sophisticated-looking than the crayon effect. The ironing-on step is exactly the same.

Either of these two methods, good fabric paint, or iron-on transfer dyes, will give you nice effects, without requiring much more rinsing of the colored area than you're already doing. Whether you use the fabric paint or the transfer dye, I strongly recommend you pick up a yard or so of inexpensive fabric from the fabric store to practice on first, a polyester fabric that is similar in feel and in color to your dress's material.

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