Name: Judy
Message: I really have searched and found a lot of infomation on your website. My question is this. I go to your list for info on the Procion fiber reactives and I am curious to how important or what significance it is to whether or not the product is pure or mixed? I am trying to keep logs of dyes and color with all the varibles. Is it because of color consistancy when it's mixed...being unreliable that is or is it a quality issue. I paniced when I did not buy all MX Procions the first time so this is why I ask. 

One time when it really matters whether a dye is pure or mixed is when your different premixed dye colors spread out on the fabric and meet each other. If, for example, an orange separates out and creeps the fastest from one mixture, and a blue creeps the fastest from another, when the two meet you will get a muddy color, which may or may not go at all well with your overall color scheme. I've seen some unfortunate results this way. It's best to mix your own colors so that when they meet each other the results are not a bad surprise. This is only rarely a significant problem.

Another time is when you have gotten tired of outdated dyes and poor customer support from one dye supply company, and want to switch to a more reliable dye supplier. The pure, unmixed colors are the same from one retailer to another, though their names are often different, so that you can substitute one for another with no change. The proprietary mixtures sold by one dye retailer are never exactly the same as the mixtures sold by another dye retailer, though.

A third reason to work with pure dyes is that each one has slightly different properties. As you work you will get a feeling for how each one works, if you know which is which. If you don't know which is which, you won't be able to make many concusions about the dyes from your observations and trial-and-error. For example, fuchsia (red MX-8B) reacts very quickly and stays put where it first hits the fabric, if you presoak with soda ash. This can make very nice effects, if it's what you want. Mixing red (red MX-5B) spreads out more and is better when you want smooth color blending.

A fourth reason is that mixed dyes that contain fuchsia are notorious for producing red dots on your fabric, because a lot of bad batches of fuchsia have been getting out in recent years. This is a particular problem if you vat-dye solid colors. Good fresh batches of fuchsia don't do this nearly as much. You can usually (though not always) solve the problem by filtering your dye mixtures, but that is a big pain in my opinion. It's a lot easier to test just one jar of fuchsia dye to see if it has this problem than to test every jar of midnight blue, bright yellow, dusty rose, etc. If you discover a batch of dye is bad, soon after you receive it, you can maybe return it for a fresher jar, but it will take some time to figure it out if you have many jars to test. All of the other pure dye colors appear to be free of this problem; only fuchsia and the many pre-mixed dye colors are a risk for it. (The mixed dye colors from PRO Chemical & Dye appear to be the most reliable.)

Premixed colors can be a great convenience or just fun to play with, but I think it can be important to know whether you are getting a premixed color or a pure color. I don't think that premixed colors are a bad thing (except when they contain fuchsia with the red dot problem). I just think it's good to make an effort to get pure unmixed dyes as well, and to know which are which. I like to buy premixed blacks in particular, and sometimes red or purple; also, for low water immersion dyeing, premixed neutral colors are a lot of fun to work with, as they separate out into many different colors. It can be nice to get a jar of your favorite color, too.

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