Is one container of black dye enough? And do I really need urea, soda ash, and synthrapol?

Name: Elizabeth

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Country or region: U.S.

Message: Hi. I read your response on the turquoise dress and have a shirt that's similar, with 92 percent viscose and 8 percent spandex, that I also want to dye black. I was going to order the Procion MX jet black, 2/3 oz. (a) Is one container of black enough? and (b) their site says you also need the soda ash and synthropol, and that urea makes the color stronger. Do I really need these things, especially the urea? Thanks!

Procion MX fiber reactive dye is certainly an excellent choice for dyeing a viscose rayon/spandex blend.

Will you be dyeing your shirt a single solid color? If so, you should use high water ratio immersion dyeing, such as bucket dyeing or washing machine dyeing. These methods of dye application do not require urea at all.

Urea is very helpful for keeping tie-dyed or dye-painted items damp longer, because the dye-fiber reaction stops happening if the fabric dries out completely. In high water ratio immersion dyeing, or in low water immersion dyeing, there is sufficient water that you won't have a bit of trouble with drying, and so you will not need urea at all. (See my page, "What is urea for, in dyeing? Is it necessary?")

How much dye is enough? See my page, "How much Procion MX dye should I use?". What you need to do is weigh your shirt, while it's dry. The amount of fabric you have to dye, combined with the darkness of the color you want, will determine how much dye you should use. Your bathroom scale will not be able to manage something as small and light as a shirt, but your kitchen scale should do very nicely. If you don't have a kitchen scale, take your shirt to the produce department of a grocery store, or to the self-service part of a post office, and use their scale. It's very important to have an approximate idea of how much your fabric weighs.

Black is the darkest of all colors, and so you must always use much more dye powder to dye anything black than you would use for any other color. Suppose that your shirt weighs six ounces. For black, you may need as much as 10% of this dry weight, in dye powder! (You'd need far less dye for a paler color.) Since, as shown in the second table on the "How much Procion MX dye should I use?" page, you would need up to 30 grams of dye powder to dye one pound of fabric, for a six-ounce shirt, you would need about 11 grams of black dye powder.

The tiny jars sold by Jacquard Products are an excellent Procion MX fiber reactive dye, but they are very small jars. Each jar contains only 2/3 ounce of dry dye powder, which is about 18 grams. When dyeing black, one of these little jars will be sufficient for a shirt that weighs up to ten ounces.

In addition to dye, for bucket-dyeing a shirt to a single solid color, you will need soda ash or washing soda, and a large quantity of ordinary non-iodized salt, which you can buy at the grocery store. You absolutely must have either soda ash or washing soda to set the dye, and you must have the salt if you are using a large amount of water, as otherwise too much of the dye will be wasted by staying in the water and not even reaching the fiber you're dyeing. Synthrapol is an excellent detergent for pre-washing before dyeing, to remove some of the invisible stains and finishes that can interfere with dyeing, but other detergents can work, too, as long as they're not the new type that is supposed to confer stain-resistant properties.

Before you order your materials, find a good recipe for the method you're going to use, and read through the instructions to see what you will need. For solid-color dyeing, including in a bucket or in a washing machine, see my page, "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?", which includes links to several different recipes. For mottled or multi-colored dyeing, see "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing". For tie-dyeing or dye painting, see "How to Dye with Fiber Reactive Dyes".

Note that there may be a few problems in overdyeing a commercial garment. The stitching is almost certainly made of polyester, which will not take the dye, and therefore will remain the original color. Will your shirt look good black if it still has seams sewn in the original color? The answer depends very much on its style. Some garments have been pre-treated with a stain-resistant or wrinkle-resistant finish, which will limit how much color the fibers can absorb. Occasionally, a garment will be made of pieces of fabric from two different bolts, which take any added dye in different amounts, meaning that one panel may come out darker or lighter than the others. And, of course, if there is any invisible stain, whether one you made without realizing it, or one left by errors in the manufacturing process, it is possible to get a lighter region wherever the stain was originally, even if you could not see it at all before dyeing. You will be successful in redyeing a commercial garment probably nine times out of ten, if you do everything correctly, but, every now and then, something can go wrong.

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Is one container of black dye enough? And do I really need urea, soda ash, and synthrapol?

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