Country: USA

Message: Hey, I have a pair of completely cloth shoes that are white, and I want to dye them green. The label on them says 'all man made materials.' Should I even bother to dye them because it's too hard to find a dye and too hard to dye, or is it possible at all?

Instead of using dyes you should use fabric paint.

The trouble with the dyes is that you've probably got some polyester in your shoes, or perhaps acrylic canvas. Dyeing cotton or hemp shoes with the fiber reactive dyes in a tie-dye kit gives great results, but for polyester or acrylic you have to use a completely different type of dye, which requires high heat to transfer. I don't think it would be a good idea to boil your shoes in polyester dye, because chances are the glue would soften and the shoes would come apart.

Not all fabric paints will work on synthetic materials, but Jacquard Products says that their fabric paints all work on polyester and other synthetic fabrics. Their fabric paints include Lumiere, Neopaque, Jacquard Traditionals, Dye-Na-Flow, and others. Dye-na-Flow is thinner and flows more like a dye, but Neopaque provides better coverage over areas that are not white.

Another fabric paint you could try is Dharma Pigment Dye. In spite of its name, it's a paint, not a dye. It does work on polyester, and it's more economical because it can be diluted with a much larger volume of water.

It is important to use fabric paints, rather than any other sort of paint, because other paints dry to a rough and scratchy finish, and in many cases do not adhere to the fabric as well.

The various Jacquard Products fabric paints can sometimes be found in good art supply or crafts stores, and they can also be mail-ordered from suppliers such as Blick Art Materials or Dharma Trading Company. Dharma Pigment Dyes must be ordered directly from Dharma Trading Company.

There's one problem I need to warn you about. If your shoes have been treated with a water-resistant or stain-resistant finish, then neither dye not paint will adhere well. Before ordering your fabric paints, try sprinkling a few drops of water on the surface of your shoes. If it soaks in quickly, then fabric paints will probably work well, but if the drops of water bead up and stay on the surface, there will be no way to change the color of the shoes.

(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)