Name: Cody
Country: Canada
Message: Hi, I see you know your stuff with dyeing. I have garments that are already hot pink and 50 cotton/50 poly and 300gram, do you know how I could dye them navy blue, black, purple, etc. permanently? The home dye kits seem to run after awhile. Thanks.

Dyeing a polyester/cotton blend is a problem. Any dye that will work on polyester will wash out of cotton, and vice versa. 

This is okay for pale colors. If you dye a 50% cotton/50% polyester garment with a cotton dye, such as fiber reactive dye or direct dye, you will get a pink that is about 50% of the strength of the color you'd get on 100% cotton. Use a red dye, you'll get a pink garment; use a black dye, you'll get a gray garment (though since you're starting with hot pink, that color will also show through any pale dye colors you apply). The same thing happens if you use a polyester dye to dye only the polyester part of the blend.

For dark colors such as navy, purple, or black, however, you're going to have to dye both the cotton and the polyester.

Normally this is done, by home dyers, as a two-step process. The best dyes for cotton are the fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes; the only dyes for polyester are the disperse dyes. You can apply Procion MX dyes in a bucket or a top-loading washing machine, for a smooth solid color, but polyester will have to be boiled on the stovetop in a very large cooking pot, large enough for the garments to move in freely; don't plan to reuse a dyepot for food preparation in the future.

Alternatively, you can buy Jacquard Products new iDye for cotton, which is a type of direct dye, and iDye poly for polyester, which is a type of disperse dye, and apply them at the same time by boiling them in a very large cooking pot. The iDye for cotton can be applied in the washing machine, though it works better on the stovetop, but you cannot expect good results for dyeing polyester at anything less than a full rolling boil.

The disperse dyes carried by PRO Chemical & Dye are probably superior to the lower-energy disperse dyes included in the iDye Poly, longer-lasting and more predictable in color, and fiber reactive dyes such as Procion MX are certainly superior to any direct dye such as iDye, but you can't beat the convenience of being able to apply both dyes at the same time, as you can with the iDye plus iDye Poly. Be sure to buy some iDye Fixative to make the iDye more wash-resistant. Direct dyes really need this type of cationic dye fixative in order to endure through many launderings; adding salt or vinegar will not do the job.

There's at least one mail-order supplier in Canada for the iDye dyes, Island Blue Art Store, in Victoria, BC. PRO Chemical & Dye, which carries superior disperse dyes, as well as many other types of dye, is located in Massachusetts in the US, but they do sell and ship internationally.

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