I'm trying to attain a bright, in-your-face red without luck, on 100% cotton. Would you happen to have a formula?

If you're using Procion MX type dyes, I like a mixture of Orange MX-2R (reactive orange 4) with Red MX-5B (reactive red 2), in approximately equal quantities. Do a small test to see if the relative amounts you mix of these two dyes look right to you. This mixture is particularly good for direct dye application, such as tie dye, because it does not produce the yellow halos you will get from mixing yellow MX-8G with red MX-8B.

If your colors are not coming out bright enough, you may want to use MORE dye. I like to use four teaspoons of dye per cup of water, when tie-dyeing. Old dye will also produce pinker reds, as will trying to dye fabric that is less than 100% cotton, or which has been treated for stain resistance.

A really good way to play with different color formulae is to look at Olli Niemitalo's wonderful Dye Mixer Applet. It won't tell you the precise amounts of each dye to use (this requires that you first determine for each dye how much to use to get a specific brightness indicated there), but it's a very quick, easy, and helpful way to get ideas.

Any magenta or fuchsia primary mixed with any bright yellow or orange can produce a pretty good red if mixed together in the right proportions. I do not like to use any dye mixtures as mixing primaries, but only the pure unmixed dye colors listed on "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?". Premixed dyes used as mixing primaries often result in duller colors.

You can try a series of several different proportions as a test to see how much of each to mix together. It's easiest to do this by mixing each dye in water and then combining different proportions of the resulting dye solutions. You can then easily mix different amounts of the two dyes, such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 1:3, 3:1.... Unfortunately, you can't be certain of the final color of any dye mixture until the dye has fully set and the excess unattached dye has been washed out.

There is no widely available pure unmixed red Procion MX type dye, but every dye supplier sells pre-mixed reds, which can be useful timesavers, depending on your preferences. There is one pretty nearly true red pure unmixed Procion MX dye, Red MX-G or reactive red 5, but it is expensive, very hard to find (none of the usual dye suppliers carry it), and in no way superior to a mixture of Orange MX-2R with Red MX-5B. I bought some once from Standard Dye but did not end up using it much.

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