Country: Canada

Message: Hello I'm wondering how I might go about dying polyester faux fur- specifically, they are knee-high boot covers, quite thick, and white. I understand the choices are limited. Is it possible that hair dye might do the job? Or will the chemicals fry the fabric? 

No, hair dye simply will not work well enough on polyester. As a general rule, hair dyes are designed to bond to natural, protein-based fibers (including hair, of course), and will therefore bind only to similar fibers, such as wool, silk, and surprisingly, nylon, but never to polyester.  The problem is not that they might fry the fabric, but simply that they won't color it at all acceptably.

Fortunately, there are much better alternatives for you. You will have to use a special polyester dye, called disperse dye. Disperse dye is the only type of dye that will permanently bind to polyester. In some cases, non-permanent dyes may stain polyester to a pale color; for example, by boiling polyester in strong coffee, you can produce a light brownish beige (along with a very strong coffee smell that clings to the fabric for a long time). For longer-lasting and more intense colors, you will get far better results with disperse dye.

You can buy disperse dye in several different forms. One form can be boiled with the polyester to color it a single solid color. This is the form found in Jacquard Products' "iDye Poly", as well as the disperse dyes sold by Aljo dyes in New York and PRO Chemical & Dye in Massachusetts. In Canada, you can mail-order iDye Poly from G&S Dye, in Toronto. Unfortunately, this dye requires high heat to transfer to polyester, though some other synthetic fibers will take the dye at more moderate heat. You cannot dye polyester in the washing machine, because polyester dyeing requires boiling temperatures.

Disperse dye is also available in the form of fabric transfer crayons. (See "Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers". ) You can often buy these at fabric stores and crafts stores. The way you use them is very different from the iDye Poly: you color with them onto paper, then iron them on to your fabric. The high heat of the iron works even better than the boiling temperature of the iDye Poly dyebath. This method is great when you want to paint different parts of your project in different colors. It may also be easier on your fabric than boiling it for an hour.

Fabric transfer paints are disperse dyes in powder form that are mixed with water to make paint, painted onto paper, and then transferred with a hot iron, just the like fabric transfer crayons. As with the crayons, you will find the original colors to appear to be rather dull, but the colors that appear on the polyester as you iron are very intense.

From your description, it seems likely that your best choice will be to dye with a boiling water dyebath containing iDye Poly or another brand of disperse dye powder, along with a color enhancing chemical that is needed only for polyester, not other synthetic fibers. The color-enhancing chemical is included in iDye Poly in a separate little pouch, and is purchased separately from the disperse dye, as a dye carrier chemical, from PRO Chemical & Dye. It helps considerably in reaching the desired color on polyester. You will need a very large cooking pot in which you can submerge the boot covers entirely while boiling them in the dye. Unlike other dyes, iDye Poly can be used with an aluminum pot, which is cheaper than the stainless steel or enamel pots required for other dyes (though those are also fine for iDye Poly). You will need to cook the dyebath at a high enough heat that you see bubbles at the edges of the water. I hope that boiling does not alter the texture of the fake fur in your boot covers.

One last, very important point: dyeing will be impossible if your boot covers have been treated with any kind of water-proofing or stain resistance. These surface finishes repel all kinds of dye, as well as water and stains. I hope that this will not be a problem for you.

By the way, do not buy plain iDye, which is a direct dye for use on natural fibers only. To dye polyester, you must use iDye Poly, instead, or any other form of disperse dye. iDye Poly is a completely different kind of dye from iDye.

(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)