My dye sites have all been used up by discharging and redyeing. Can I use a different type of dye?


Name: Elliot

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Jacquard idye

Jacquard iDye Direct Dye

iDye is a direct dye that can be used only on cellulose fibers such as cotton, linen, and rayon, as well as silk. (Note that iDye Poly is a different type of dye, disperse dye, which can be used to immersion dye polyester, nylon, and acrylic.)

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Procion mx fiber reactive cold water dye

Procion MX Dye

ideal for cotton, rayon, linen, and silk

When mixed with soda ash, Procion dyes are permanent, colorfast, and very washable. You can easily create a palette of brilliant colors ranging from light pastels to deep, vibrant hues.



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Country or region: New York

Message: I have worked with dyes since around 1980 for around the home uses. I have periodically looked at your website when I had a question. You are one of the most knowledgeable people I have run across. I have a question: When I have made too many discharges and redyeings of the same fabric, eventually the dye (MX) won't take. I have read that this has to do with the dye sites being used up. My question is can I try using a different class of dye like iDye which I think is a basic dye not a fiber reactive dye to try to save my project? The fabric is linen/rayon. If you don't know, can you suggest where to look? Thanks

That must be a great many cycles of redyeing and discharge! How many times do you think you've dyed and bleached one of these pieces?

My experience on using up dye sites is that it depends hugely on the thickness of the material you are dyeing. A very thin sheer silk runs out of dye sites quite quickly, allowing perhaps only two rounds of dyeing. A thick woven or knitted fabric almost never seems to run out of dye sites. In many cases, I find that washing and drying the material, preferably in hot water, helps to physically move the textile fibers around within a piece, exposing more dye sites. I think that machine drying is probably more effective for this than line-drying, simply because it involves more physical movement of the fibers. Unfortunately, with rayon, which is notorious for its lack of wet strength, you must be careful not to subject the wet fabric to too much wear, or it will develop holes.

It's interesting that discharge does not restore the ability of the site on the fiber to bond to dye. We generally imagine that bleaching or other types of discharging removes dye. However, that's really not how it works. The way oxidative bleaches, such as the hypochlorite in household bleach, work, is by breaking up the dye molecules, which leaves part of the dye molecule still bonded to the fabric. The way reductive discharge agents work, such as Thiox or Rit Color Remover, is by reducing some of the double bonds in the dye chemical to turn it into a colorless version, again leaving the dye molecule in place. This explains how household bleach often produces odd colors even on known single-hue dyes, such as turning a red dye (Procion Red MX-5B) into a beige color, when the broken-up version of a dye happens to be another color of dye. Of course many dyed items are dyed with a mixture of dyes, so if one dye in the mix is more susceptible to a given discharge agent, the other colors in the mix will suddenly show up, which tells us nothing about how discharging acts on the dye molecules.

Your point about trying an entirely different class of dyes is a good one, and one well worth testing. iDye does not, in fact, contain a basic dye. Instead, it contains direct dyes. (In contrast, iDye Poly contains disperse dyes, for dyeing synthetic fibers only, not including viscose rayon.) See "About Direct Dyes". Since direct dyes attach to the fiber in an entirely different way than reactive dyes do, it is likely to continue to work even if you can no longer get reactive dyes to work.

The fact that they are direct dyes, rather than basic dyes, is fortunate, because basic dyes perform remarkably poorly on cellulose fibers, such as rayon and linen. Direct dyes lack the washfastness of reactive dyes, but that can be corrected by the use of a cationic dye fixative, such as Retayne. Nothing can correct the poor lightfastness of basic dyes on cellulose.

Direct dyes are not the best choice for dye painting, but they will work well for bound resist, such as tie-dyeing or other forms of shibori. They are unsuitable for use with a wax resist in batik, because direct dyes work best in very hot water, hot enough to soften wax; however, some batik artists use direct dyes, compromising on the dyebath temperature to protect their wax.

Like reactive dyes, direct dyes vary in their susceptibility to discharge. There is a table showing the properties of specific direct dyes, including lightfastness, washfastness, neutral discharge, and alakaline discharge, on my page about "Lightfastness of Different Types of Dyes". Unfortunately, Jacquard Products keeps it secret which dyes are in their iDye mixtures, so you will not be able to look them up anywhere. You will have to test each different color of iDye that you use, to learn whether or not it will discharge. iDye dyes have a much better reputation than the direct dyes found in all-purpose mixed dyes such as Rit dye or Tintex dye; people seem to be finding them more satisfactory, in spite of the limitations that are inevitable with direct dyes. If you want to be able to know exactly what Direct dyes you are using, complete with their Color Index generic names, you can order them by phone from Aljo Mfg. in New York (call 212-966-4046); if you order from them, please tell them that I sent you to them.

Another potential choice for your linen/rayon blend would be vat dyes. See "About Vat Dyes". They are more complex to use than reactive dyes or direct dyes, but they can work very well, and using an entirely different mechanism than either reactive or direct dyes. They are among the most light-resistant of all dyes, and significantly more wash-resistant than direct dyes. One very popular vat dye is indigo, whether natural or synthetic. Other synthetic vat dyes are available in a wide variety of colors.

Don't neglect the category of fabric paints and pigment dyes, as opposed to real dyes. See "Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers". Fabric paints can work very well on top of dyes (though I don't recommending putting dyes on top of fabric paints, unless you're specifically using the paints as dye resists). There are some effects, such as metallics and pearl colors, which cannot be obtained with dyes alone. Fabric paints might be exactly what you need to finish your many-times-discharged pieces.

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Posted: Tuesday - July 13, 2010 at 10:04 AM          

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