Which dye can I use to make a cotton/acrylic sweater black again?

Name: Tammie

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Dye polyester and poly/cotton blends

Country or region: Alabama, USA

Message: I have a black sweater that faded yesterday when I washed it. It is 55% cotton and 45% acrylic. Which dye can I use to make it black again?

You won't be able to do this, unless it's only the cotton fibers whose dye ran, because you can't dye acrylic black.

Dyeing the cotton fibers in your sweater black is an easy task. The best dyes to use for this would be fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye, which is easy to use at room temperature, using washing soda to set the dye.

However, dyeing acrylic black is completely impractical, at home. Acrylic cannot be dyed with any dye that works on cotton. The only two types of dye that will permanently color acrylic are disperse dyes and basic (or cationic) dyes. Disperse dyes work well on acrylic, but they cannot produce dark colors on acrylic, so that won't work for your black sweater. Disperse dyes are good only for pale to medium shades on acrylic, not for black or any other very dark color. However, basic dyes are not a good choice for home dyeing, because some of them are toxic or cause cancer, and they badly stain everything they touch, and they are very difficult to find a source to buy them from, in the small quantities that you'd want.

It could be that only the cotton in your sweater was incorrectly dyed, so that the dye faded. If the acrylic fibers in your sweater are still black, then it will be easy to redye the cotton fibers. Can you see whether there are still some black fibers in your sweater, if you look at it with a magnifying glass? If the acrylic is still black, and only the cotton has faded, then your sweater's problem can be corrected.

First, I would recommend that you try to wash out as much of the poorly-fixed black dye as possible, using hot water, the hotter the better (if the care label indicates that hot water is okay). Soaking in hot water for a while will help with this process. The remnants of the poor dye will otherwise continue to run in the future when you wash it the sweater.

Next, you should buy some good-quality dye. Although the easiest kind of dye to find in the store is all-purpose dye, it is not very good, because it tends to run in the wash, as your sweater already did. You should look for a higher quality dye.

Fiber reactive dye performs much better than all-purpose dyes, on cotton. (Of course, neither all-purpose dye not fiber reactive dye will color acrylic, as they just wash out of the acrylic fiber.) If there's a good good crafts store near you, look for Jacquard Procion MX dye, or Dylon Permanent Dye, or Tulip Permanent dye, all of which contain fiber reactive dye. You can also buy Procion MX dye by mail-order; serious dyers usually do, because the prices and the color selection are much better. (For where to buy by mail-order, see my page, "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".) Do not buy Rit all-purpose dye, unless you are also going to buy a commercial dye fixative such as Retayne, which is unfortunately very hard to find except by mail-order. If you buy Dylon Permanent Dye or Tulip Permanent dye, you may need to use two or three packets of dye, depending on the dry weight of your sweater. Follow the instructions on the package carefully.

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Posted: Tuesday - November 16, 2010 at 08:06 AM

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Which dye can I use to make a cotton/acrylic sweater black again?

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