Name: kathryn harris
Message: Hi... I saw your web page and wonder if you could give me some advice?
I have a 100% silk dress (black). A section on the front of the dress has faded after being rubbed with water (very upsetting - it is my fav dress!). Is it possible to dye the dress with something to restore the colour. Any advice on an appropriate product and technique would be much apprecited. All the dyes I've found require boiling etc and the instructions on the dress say cold wash or dry clean only.

If water is the cause of the stain, then the dress is probably not dyeable, unless you actually wash the whole dress with water and find that it survives the experience. Generally, problems with water spots are best treated by full immersion in water. If you could get the whole dress to fade uniformly, perhaps it would be okay.

It is possible to dye silk with a cold water dye, but the texture of the fabric will be changed. It will change from a shiny, formal texture to a softer, less formal, washed texture. This is not necessarily bad, but it is different.

You can dye a silk dress in room temperature water (70 to 100 degrees water) using a fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye, and soda ash. The same dye can be used with silk as an acid dye, using vinegar or citric acid instead of soda ash, but then heat is required in order to get the dye to associate with the fiber. It is the high pH of the soda ash that changes the texture of the silk.

Lanaset dye can be used to dye silk at 185 degrees F.; here is the recipe: http://www.prochemical.com/directions/Sabraset_Immersion.htm. The question is whether you would rather risk the shininess of the fabric by dyeing with Procion MX type dye and soda ash, or risk whatever the hot water will do to the dress, but not risk the texture. If the dress is currently unwearable, it may be worth taking a risk. Lanaset dye is considered to include the best of all black dyes for silk and other protein fibers; black mixtures of Procion MX and other fiber reactive dyes may not prove to be black on silk, but some other color such as very dark green.