Name: Alyce

Message: Is there a special way to rise tie dye materials after they have set for 8 hours to make the colors stay as true as possible?

What kind of dye did you use? Did you use soda ash? Did you use 100% cotton with no stain-resistant or permanent-press finishes?

If you used a good cool water fiber reactive dye, and you used soda ash, and you made sure that the eight hours (or more) or the dye reaction were at 70°F or higher, then all you have to do now is rinse once thoroughly with cool water (I like to do even the first rinse in the washing machine), without detergent (though Synthrapol is okay), followed by two washings in hot (140°F) water, with Synthrapol or another laundry detergent.

There should be no need for any sort of fixative or treatment, unless something went wrong in the dyeing process. Your final results will be a little lighter than before rinsing; your tie-dyed items should always be very dark with excess dye, darker than your desired final results, for the 8-hour dye fixation step. I prefer to leave the dye to fix for an excessive amount of time, overnight rather than just eight hours, to make sure that all of the dye has reacted, so there is no cross-staining between pieces.

If, on the other hand, you used all-purpose dye, such as Rit brand dye, it is essential to either heat the fabric in the dyebath, preferably for at least half an hour at 190°F, or to steam the dyed fabric for half an hour (wrapped up in paper and then steamed like vegetables), in both cases followed by treatment with a commercial dye fixative such as Retayne. All-purpose dye is a hot water dye, but even when applied in hot water, it requires an additional fixative. Chemicals such as soda ash, vinegar, or salt will not work to fix all-purpose dye; it can be fixed only with a cationic dye fixative.

Thank you for your help. We did use Rit dye and soda ash.  The die bath water was boiling hot. And right now the tie dye materials are sitting in my warm garage
heating up.  So I'm pretty sure that we did all of the steps correctly I just want to make sure that we get the rinse process correct so that all of our tieing and dying don't go to waste. Thanks so much for all your help,

The kind of dye you used is very important in deciding how to rinse the items you dyed. All-purpose dye is a non-washfast type of dye which does not work very well for tie-dyeing. When using all-purpose dye, you must be careful NOT to follow the instructions that are given for fiber reactive dyes.

Do NOT wash your all-purpose-dyed items in hot water! Hot water washing is good only for items dyed with fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dye. All-purpose dye does not attach firmly to fabric, and will wash out in hot water.

You will get the best results possible from your all-purpose-dyed items if you rinse them only in cold water, by hand, until you have used a commercial dye fixative such as Retayne to set the dye. Some fabric stores sell Retayne, but often it is necessary to buy it by mail-order.

There is, unfortunately, no point in using soda ash with all-purpose dye, because soda ash does not help to set all-purpose dye at all. Also, allowing eight hours or more hours for this kind of dye to react does not help, because all-purpose dye cannot react at room temperature. They do not, technically, react with the fabric at all, but instead form a relatively loose association with it.

You will want to get fiber reactive dye for your next project, such as Procion MX dye. You will be amazed at how much better the colors are, how much easier it is to apply cool water dyes, and how much longer-lasting the dye is in the laundry, as compared to all-purpose dye. When going to all that work, you will find it much more satisfying to use higher-quality dyes. They are also more economical than all-purpose dye, in the long run.

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