Name: Amber
Message: My question is we are trying to figure if we can dye a dance costume. The leotard is made of matte nylon/spandex and the skirt is nylon/spandex mesh. The other costume choice is microfiber poly/spandex. We have never dyed before and we have no clue how to do this we need to dye this material one yellow, one green and one burgundy...please let me know if you can help...thanks

Don't try to dye the polyester/spandex blend. Polyester requires high heat for dyeing, while spandex is heat-sensitive. There's no practical way to dye the blend yourself at home. However, it may be possible to use a good fabric paint, instead of dye.

Nylon/spandex can be dyed, or you can use fabric paint to do something called "pigment dyeing" although it does not actually involve the use of dyes. The advantage of the fabric paint is that it does not require any heat, and it works on polyester, also. The disadvantage is that pigment dyeing generally does not dye a single solid color. See "Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers".

To dye a nylon/spandex blend, you have to choose the right kind of dye, and then compromise between the needs of the two fibers in selecting your dyeing conditions. Dyeing nylon requires heat, while spandex can easily be damaged by heat; however, the heat required by the nylon is much less extreme than that required for dyeing polyester. The dye you need to use is called acid dye. To dye a solid color, you will probably do best by dyeing in the washing machine. There is a link to Jacquard's instructions on machine-dyeing with Jacquard acid dyes in the washing machine on my page on "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?".

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