Name: Dorin

Message: Hello!  I just dyed a pair of cotton pants with black Rit dye.  It worked o.k. but they are not dark enough and I wanted to re-dye them with a fiber reactive dye --- how do I proceed since the pants have already been treated?  Can I dye on top of what I already did with the Rit dye?  Should I wash the pants a few times to 'wash out' the Rit dye?  I appreciate your input.  Thank you!

There won't be any bad interaction between the all-purpose dye dye and the fiber reactive dye, but you might want to remove some of the Rit dye now so that you don't have to worry about it in the laundry later. Otherwise, you'll have to sort your clothes by color so that the Rit dye in your pants does not bleed onto and ruin other clothing. This is something that Procion dye does not do, once you've washed out any unattached excess dye. I never sort my Procion-dyed clothing by color, and the dyes in my clothes never run in the laundry. Then again, I think you should wait to do the extra washing. You'll need to wash in the hottest water your pants can stand, anyway, to wash out the unattached excess Procion MX dye; the same step will remove a lot of the Rit dye.

Just wash the pants once in hot water, or water as hot as the pants can stand, to be sure that all of the loosest Rit dye is gone, and to be sure to remove any invisible stains that might take the dye differently.

In general, with any dye, even Rit, you need to use two to four times as much of the dye powder (or liquid), in order to get a good dark rich black, as you would use of another color. Before you buy your dye, weigh your cotton pants, dry, to see how much dye you will need. You could probably get a good black with Rit if you used enough of it, but it won't last very long, compared to fiber reactive dye, so I strongly recommend the fiber reactive dye anyway.

Dylon Permanent 12 Black is an excellent black fiber reactive dye. Follow the instructions on the packet. Each packet will dye only half a pound of fabric black, so a two-pound pair of pants will require four packets. Tulip One Step Fashion dye contains another kind of fiber reactive dye, the same as in Procion MX dye, and should give you good results; one package is claimed to dye up to four shirts, so it might be enough for your one pair of pants. Both Dylon and Tulip dyes already contain the dye fixative in the package. Don't neglect to stir constantly.

To dye in the washing machine, I recommend that you mail-order some black Procion MX dye, in addition to salt and soda ash. It's much more economical than Dylon or Tulip dye, if you mail-order it in jars of two ounces or larger. You'll need 150 grams of black Procion MX dye powder for an average top-loading washing machine load, or 30 grams for dyeing one pound of fabric black in a bucket (with lots of stirring to keep the color smooth).

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