Name: Susan
Message: My daughter was asked to bring in rubbing oil to school to do a tie dye project. What is rubbing oil and where do you buy it? Thanks

What country are you in? What grade is your daughter in, in school?

I have never heard of rubbing oil, and certainly not of the use of any sort of oil in any form of tie-dyeing. There is a definition of rubbing oil at the Paint Ideas web site: "A pale, medium heavy mineral oil used with pumice stone or other abrasives as a lubricant for rubbing the dried film of finishing materials." This is relevant to painting and furniture finishing, however, not to textile work. It may or may not be the sort of rubbing oil your daughter's teachers want.

The requirements for squirt bottle tie-dyeing, which is by far the most popular form of tie-dyeing, are fiber reactive dye, water, soda ash (sodium carbonate), and, optionally, urea.

The requirements for boiling-water tie-dyeing are direct dye or all-purpose dye, salt, water, and a source of heat.

It is also possible to use fabric paint, which includes a form of paint that is called "pigment dye" although it is not a dye, to copy tie-dyeing, though the results are not the same as true tie-dyeing. However, fabric paint does not require any sort of oil, either.

Whatever your daughter's class is doing, you will need to ask her teachers for more information, because it is something different from any of the usual sorts of tie-dyeing.